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•^ m PROPBRTY OP TH« ^
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AftTtS SCIINT>A VEftlTAS
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(L7C
THE ^y^.^.
ORATIONS
OF
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.
Xiforallq fosslatfir hq
C. D. Y O N G E, B. A-
VOL. n.
OONTAINIKO TBI
THRSE ORATIONS ON THE AGRARIAN LAW, THE FOUR AGAINSI
CATILINE, THE ORATIONS FOR RABIRIUS, MURENA,
SYLLA, ARCHIAS, ELACCUS, SCAURUS,
V LONDON:
' HENRY a BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT (itAUDEV
^ 1856.
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LONDON:
aiCIIARD Cr.AT, PBINTER, BREAD S1RKKT HILL
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I
K rx^^Ji^vwii A'Ca
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CONTENTS.
PAGB
Fragments of the Oration for M. Tullius 1
— for M. Fonteius 16
^ Dratien for A. Csecina 85
in defence of the proposed Manilian Law 77
for A. Cluentins 104
i'ragments of the Oration for C. Cornelius 188
against C. Antonius and L. Catilina . . 194
IMrst Oration concerning the Agrarian Law . . . ' 202
Second Oration concerning the Agrarian Law 218
'i hird Oration concerning the Agrarian Law 257
< -ration for C. Babirius 268
First Oration against L. Catilina 278
Second Oration against L. Catilina 292
Third Oration against L. Catilina 303
F(^urth Oration against L. Catilina 817
Oration for L. Murena 380 ^
for P. Sylla 874
for A. L. Archias 411
for L. Flaccns 424
i irst Oration after Cicero's return 470
Second Oration after Cicero's return 491
Omtion against P. ClodiuB and C. Curio 502
for M. iBmilius Scaurus 505
y
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CICEEO'S ORATIONS.
TEE FBAGMENTS WHICH REMAIN OP THE SPEECH OP
M. T. CICERO ON BEHALF OP MARCUS TULLIUS.*
THB AKOUMEKT.
Marcus Tallins had a &rm ; and a man of the name of Pablius Fabiu9
had bought another farm bordering on it. On the £urm of Tulliae
there was a large field which Pabius coveted greatly; and as he
could not obtain it by bargain, or by any legal process, (though he
does seem to have tried this latter expedient,) he arms a gang of
slaves, and sends them to take possession of the land ; they murder
Tullius's slaves, and demolish and bum the villa which he had there.
After all this, TuUius prosecutes Pabius for the damage done. So
that, as it seems, this speech ought rather to be called a speech
against Pablius Pabius than a speech on behalf of Marcus Tullius.
FoBMEBLY, 0 judges, I had determined to condnct this cause
in a different manner, thinking that our adversaries would
deny that their household was implicated in such a violent
and atrocious murder. Accordingly, I came with a mind
free from care and anxiety, because I was aware that I could
easily prove that by witnesses. But now, when it has been
confessed, not only by that most honourable man, Lucius
Quintius, but when Publius Fabius himself has not hesitated
to admit the facts which are the subject of this trial, I come
forward to plead this cause in quite a different manner from
that in which I was originally prepared to argue it For then
* This Oration is in a veiy imperfect and corrupt state. It is only
lately that even what we have of it has been discovered in the North of
Italy. It has been edited with great care by C. Beier, i^ho has, how-
ever, gone rather beyond the province of an editor in fiuipg up lacunce
of several lines at a time to complete what he considers must have been
Cicero's meaning. Those additions of- his I have generally thought it
better to omit from the translation, as they re^it on no authority, and aa
this work professes only to be a translation of Cicero himself.
VOL. II. B
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2 CICIffiO*S ORATIONS.
my anxiety was to be able to prove what I asserted had been
done. Now all my speech is to be directed to this point, to
prevent our adversaries from being in a better position, merely
because they have admitted what they could not possibly
deny though they greatly wished to do so. Therefore, as
matters stood at first your decision was more difficult, but
my defence was easy. For I originally rested my whole case
on the evidence; now I rest it on the confession of my adver-
sary; and to oppose hi? audacity in acts of violence, his impu-
dence in a court of justice, may fiiirly be considered as the
task of your power, not of my abilities. — For what is easier
than to decide on the case of a man who confesses the fiict 1
But it is difficult for me to speak with sufficient force of that
which cannot be by language made out worse than it is in
reality, and cannot be made more plain by my speech than it
is by the confession of the parties actually concerned.
As, therefore, on account of the reasons which I have stated,
my system of defence must be changed, I must also forget for
a little time, in the case of Publius Fabius, that lenity of
mine which I practised at the previous trial, when I restrained
myself from using any arguments which might have the
appearance of attacking hinr, so much that I seemed to be
defending his reputation with no less care than the cause of
Marcus Tullius. Now, since Quintius has thought it not
foreign to the subject to introduce so msu^ statements, fidse
for the most part and most wickedly invented, concerning the
life and habits and character of Marcus Tullius, Fabius must
pardon me for many reasons, if I do not now appear to spare
his character so much, or to show the same r^ard for it now
as I did previously. At the former trial I kept all my
stings sheathed ; but since, in that same previous trial, he
thought it a part of his duty to show no forbearance what-
ever to his adversary, how ought I to act, I, a Tullius for
another Tullius, a man kindred to me in disposition not less
than in name 1 And it seems to me, 0 judges, that I have
more need to feel anxious as to whether my conduct will be
approved in having said nothing against him before, than
blamed for the reply I now make to him. But I both did at
that time what I ought to have done, and I shall do now
what I am forced to do. For when it was a dispute about
money matters, because we said that Marcus Tullius had
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FOB M. TULLIUB. d
sustained damage, it tippeared foreign to my character to
€ay anything of the reputation of Quintus Fabius; not
because the case did not open the door to such statements.
What is my conduct then) Although the cause does re-
quire it, still, unless when he absolutely compels me against
my will, I am not inclined to condescend to speak ill of him.
Now that I am speaking imder compulsion, if I say anything
strong, still I will do even that with decency ajid moderation,
4md only in such a way that, as he could not consider me
hostile to him at the former trial, so he may now know that
I am a faithful and trustworthy Mend to Marcus Tullius.
One thing, 0 Lucius Quintius, I should wish to obtain from
you, which, although I desire because it is useful for me, still
I request of you because it is reasonable and just, — ^that you
would regulate the time that you take to yourself for speak-
ing, so as to leave the judges some time for coming to a deci-
sion. For the time before, there was no end to your speech
in his defence ; night alone set bounds to your oration. Now,
if you please, do not do the same ; this I beg of you. Nor do
I beg it on this accoimt, because I think it desirable for me
that you should pass over some topics, or that you should hjl
to state them witii suf&cient elegance, and at sufficient length;
but because I do think it enough for you to stat« each feet
only once. And if you do that, I have no fear that the whole
<iay will be taken up in talking.
The subject of this trial which comes before you, 0 judges,
is, What is the pecuniary amount of the damage inflicted on
Marcus Tullius by the malice of the household of Quintus
Fabius, by men armed and banded together in a violent man-
ner. Those damages we have taxed ; the valuation is yours ;
the decision given is that the amends shall be fourfold. As
all laws and all legal proceedings which seem at all harsh and
severe have originated in the dishonesty and injustice of
wicked men, so this form of procedure also has been estab-
lished within these few years on accoimt of the evU habits
and excessive licentiousness of men. For when many femihes
were said to be wandering armed about the distant fields and
pasture lands, and to be committing murders, and as that fact
appeared to concern not merely the estates of individuals, but
the main interests of the republic, Marcus Lucullus, who
often presided as judge with the greatest equity and wisdom,
b2
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4 CICERO S ORATIONS.
first planned this tribunal, and had regard to this object, that
all men should so restrain their households that they should
not only not go about armed to inflict damage on any one,
but, even if they were attacked, should defend themselves by
law, rather than by arms; and though he knew that the
Aquilian law ^ about damage existed, still he thought, that, as
in the time of our ancestors both men's estates and their
desires were less, and as their fiimilies, not being very nume-
rous, were restiuined by fear of important consequences, it
very seldom happened that a man would be killed, and it was
thought a ne&rious and unprecedented atrocity ; and there-
fore, that there was at that time no need of a system of judi-
cial procediure with reference to bodies of men collected in
a violent manner and armed; (for he thought that if any one
established a law or a tribunal for matters which were not
usual, he seemed not so much to forbid them as to put people
in mind of them.) In these times, when after a long civil
war our manners had so fax degenerated that men used arms
with less scruple, he thought it necessary to establish a sy^
tem of judicial procedure, with reference to the whole of a
man's household, in the formida, " Which was said to have
been done by the household," and to assign judges, in order
that the matter might be decided as speedily as possible ; and
to affix a severe pimishment, in order that audacity might be
repressed by fear, and to take away that outlet, " Damage
unjustly caused."
That which in other causes ought to have weight, and which
has weight by the Aquilian law, namely, that damage had
been caused by armed slaves in a violent manner,
« « « « « «
Men must decide themselves when they could lawfully take
arms, collect a band, and put men to death. When an action
was assigned, this alone was to be the point at issue, " whether
it appeared that damage had been inflicted by the malice of
the household, by men collected and armed acting in a vio-
lent manner," and the word " unjustly" was not to be added;
1 The Lex Aquilia provided for the damages which any one was to
pay to the owner, in the case of his having unlawfully killed any slave
or quadruped. Actions under this law were limited to damage done by
actual contact ; though the subject of them was extended afberwarda.
Vide SUn^th. Diet. Ant. p. 818, in voc Damni injuria Actio,
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FOR M. TULLIU8. 5
he thought that he bad put an end to the audacity of wicked
men when he had left them no hope of being able to make
any defence.
Since, then, you have now heard what this judicial proce-
dure is, and with what intention it was established, now
listen, while I briefly explain to you the case itself, and its
attendant circumstances.
Marcus Tullius had a farm, inherited from his father, in the
territory of Thurium, 0 judges, which he was never sorry to
have, till he got a neighbour who preferred extending the
boundaries of his estate by arms, to defending them by law.
For Publius Fabius lately purchased a &rm of Caius Claudius,
a senator, — a farm bordering on that of Marcus Tullius, — dear
enough, for nearly half as much again (though in a wretched
state of cultivation, and with all the buildings burnt down)
as Claudius himself had given for it when it was in a good
and highly ornamented condition, though he had paid an
extravagant price for it.
« « » « « *
I will add this also, which is very important to the matter.
When the commander-in-chief cQed, though he wished to
invest a sum of money, got I know not how, in a &rm, he
did not so invest it, but he squandered it. I do not very
greatly wonder that, hampered as he was by his own folly, he
wished to extricate himself how he could. But this I cannot
marvel at sufficiently, this I am indignant at, that he strives
to remedy his own folly at the expense of his neighbours, and
that he endeavoured to pacify his own ill-temper by the
injury of Tullius.
There is in that farm a field of two hundred acres, which
is called the Popilian field, 0 judges, which had always be-
longed to Marcus Tullius, and which even his fiither hod
possessed. That new neighbour of his, full of wicked hope,
and the more confident because Marcus Tullius was away,
began to wish for this field, as it appeared to him to lie very
conveniently for him, and to be a convenient addition to his
own farm. And at first, because he repented of the whole
business and of his purchase, he advertised the farm for sale.
But he had had a partner in the purchase, Cnaeus Acerronius,
a most excellent man.] He was at Rome, when on a sudden
messengers came to Marcus Tullius from his villa, to say that
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6 OIOBBO'S ORATIONS.
Publius Fabius had advertised that neighbouring farm of hia
for sale^ offering a much larger quantity of land than he an(v
Onseus Acerronius had lately purchased. He applies to the
man. He, arrogantly enough, answers just what he chooses.
And he had not yet pointed out the boimdaries. Tullius
sends letters to his agent and to his bailiff to go to the pro-
curator of Caius Claudius, in order that he might point out
• the boundaries to purchasers in their presence. But he * *
* * * refused to do this. He pointed out the boundaries
to Acerronius while they were absent ; but still he did not
give them up this Popilian field. Acerronius excused himself
from the whole business as well as he could, and as soon as he
could ; and he immediately revoked any agreement which he
had with Fabius, (for he preferred losing his money to losing
his character,)) and dissolved partnership with such a man,
being only shghtly scorched. Fabius in the meantime brings
on the ferm picked men of great courage and strength, and
prepares arms such as were suitable and fit for each of them ;
so that any one might see that those men were equipped, not
for any farming work, but for battle and murder. In a short
time tbey murdered two men of Quintus Catius JEmilianus,
an honourable man, whom you all are acquainted with. They
did many other things; they wandered about everywhere
armed ; they occupied aU the fields and r9ads in an hostile
manner, so that they seemed not obscurely but evidently to
be aware of what business they were equipped for. In the
meantime Tullius came to Thurium. 'Oien that worthy
father of a family, that noble Asiatious, that new farmer and
grazier, while he was walking in the ferm, notices in this very
Popilian field a moderate-sized building, and a slave of Marcus
Tullius, named Philinus. "What business have you," says
he, "in my field?" The slave answered modestly and sensibly,
that his master was at the villa ; that he could talk to him if
he wanted anything. Fabius asks Acerronius (for he hap-
pened to be there at the time) to go with him to Tullius.
They go. Tullius was at the villa. Fabius says that either
he will bring^an action against Tullius, or that Tullius must
bring one against him. Tullius answers that he will bring
one, and that he will exchange securities with Fabius at
Rome. Fabius agrees to this condition. Presently he '
departs.
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FOR M. TULLIUS. 7
The next night, when it was near day-break, the slaves of
Publius Fabius come armed and in crowds to that house
which I have already mentioned, which was in the Popilian
field. They make themselves an entrance by force. They
attack the slaves of Marcus Tnllius, men of great value,
unawares, which was very easy to do; and as these were
few in number and offered no resistance, they, being a
nimierous body well armed and prepared, murdered them ^
And they behaved with such rancour and cruelty that they
left them aU with their throats cut, lest, if they left any one
only half dead and still breathing, they should get the less
credit And besides this, they demolish the house and villa.
Philinus, whom I have already mentioned, and who had him-
self escaped from the massacre severely wounded, immediately
reports this atrocious, this infiimous, this unexpected attack
to Marcus Tullius. Tullius immediately sends round to his
friends, of whom in that neighbourhood he had a numerous
and honourable body. The matter appears scandalous and
infamous to them all.
******
Listen, I entreat you, to the evidence of honest men touching
those affairs which I am speaking of. Those things which
my witnesses state, our adversary confesses that they state
truly. Those things which my witnesses do not state, because
they have not seen them and do not know them, those things
our adversary himself states. Our witnesses say that they
saw the men lying dead; that they saw blood in many places;
that they saw the building demolished. TheJ^ say nothing^
further. What says Fabius ? He denies none of these things.
What then further does he add? He says that his own
household of slaves did it. How ? By men armed, with
violence. With what intention ? That that might be done
which was done. What is that ? That the men of Marcus
TuUius might be slain. If, then, they contrived aU these cir-
cumstances with this intention, so that men assembled in one
place, and armed themselves, and then marched with fixed
resolution to an appointed place, chose a suitable time, and
committed a massacre, — ^if they intended all this and planned
it, and effected it, — can you separate that intention, that design,
and that act from malice ? But those words " with malice "
are added in this form of procedure with reference to the man
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8 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
who does the deed, not to him to whom it is done. And
that you may understand this, 0 judges, attend, I beg of you,
carefully. And, in truth, you will not doubt that this is the
If the trial were assigned to proceed on this ground, that
the fact to be proved was, " That it had been done by the
household,** then if any household itself had been unwilling
to appear personally in the slaughter, and had either com-
pelled or hired the assistance of other men, whether slaves or
free men, all this trial, and the severe justice of the praetor,
would be at an end. For no one can decide that, if the
household were not present at a transaction, in that transac-
tion the household itself committed damage with men armed,
in a violent manner. Therefore, because that could be done,
and done easily too, on that account it was not thought suffi-
cient for investigation to be made as to what the household
itself had done, but as to this point also, " What had been
done by the malice of the household." For when the house-
hold itself does anything, men being collected together and
armed, in a violent maniier,^ atid inflicts damage on any one,
that must be done by malice. But when it forms a plan to
procure such a thing to be donej the household itself does
not do it, but it is done by its malice. And so by the addi-
tion of the words " by malice " the cause of both plaintiff and
defendant is made more comprehensive. For whichever point
he can prove, whether that the household itself did him the
damage, or that it was done by the contrivance and assistance
of that household, he must gain his. cause.
You see that the praetors in these last yeai-s have inter-
posed between me and Marcus Claudius with the insertion of
this clause, — '^ From which, 0 Marcus Tullius, Marcus Clau-
dius, &r Ms household, or his agent, was driven by violence."
And what follows is according to the formula in the terms in
which the praetor's interdict ran, and in which the securities
were drawn up. If I were to defend myself before a judge in
this way, — to confess that I had driven men out by violence —
to deny that there was malice in it, — ^who would listen to me 1
No one, I suppose ; because, if I drove out Marcus Claudius by
violence, I drove him out l^ malice ; for malice is a neces-
sary ingredient in violence ; and it is sufficient for Claudius to
prove either point, — either that he was driven out with vio-
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FOR M. TULLIUa 9
lence by me myself, or that I contrived a plan to have hiin
driven out with violence. More, therefore, is granted to Clau-
dius when the interdict runs thus, " from which he was driven
by violence, by my malice," than if it had merely said,
" whence he was driven by me by violence." For, in this latter
case, unless I had myself driven him out, I should gain my
cause. In the former case,' when the word " malice" is added,
whether I had merely originated the design, or had myself
driven him out, it is Inevitable that it should be decided that
he had been violently driven out by me with malice.
The case in this trial, 0 judges, is exactly like this, and, indeed,
identical with it. For I ask of you, 0 Quintius, if the point
in qtiestion were, "What appeared to be the pecuniary amoimt
of the damage done by the household of Publius Fabius, by
armed men, to Marcus Tullius," what would you have to say ?
Nothing, I suppose ; for you confess everything, both that the
household of Publius Fabius did this, and that they did it
violently with armed men. As to the addition, " with malice,"
do you think that that avails you, that by which all your
defence is cut off and excluded 1 for, if that addition had not
been made, and if you had chosen to urge, in your defence,
that your household had not done this, you would have gained
your cause if you had been able to prove this. Now, whether
you had chosen to use that defence, or this one which you are
using, you must inevitably be convicted; unless we think
that a man is brought before the court who has formed a plan,
but that one who has actually done an action is not ; since a
design may be supposed to exist without any act being done,
but an act cannot exist without a design. Or, because the act is
such that it could not be done without a secret design, without
the aid of the darkness of night, without violence, without injury
to another, without arms, without murder, without wickedness,
is it on that accoimt to be decided to have been done without
malice ? Or, will you suppose that the pleading has been ren-
dered more difficult for me in the very case in which the
prsBtor intended that a scandalous plea in defence should be
taken from him ? Here, now, they do seem to me to be men
of very extraordinary talent, when they seize themselves on the
very thing which was granted to me to be used against them ;
when they use rocks and reefs as a harbour and an anchorage.
For they wish the word " malice" to be kept in the shade ; by
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10 OIOBBO'S ORATIONS.
which they would be caught and detected, not only since they
have done the things themselves which they admit having done,
but even if they had done them by the agency of others.
I say that maUce exists not in one action alone, ^which
would be enough for me,) nor in the whole case only, (which
would also be enough for me,) but separately in every
single item of the whole business. They form a plan for
coming upon th^ slaves of Marcus Tullius : they do that with
malice. They take arms ; they do that with malice. They
choose a time suitable for laying an ambush and for conceal-
ing their design : they do that with malice. They break open
the house with violence : in the violence itself there is malice.
They murder men, they demolish buildings : it is not possible
for a man to be murdered intentionally, or for damage to be
done to another intentionally, without malice. Therefore, if
every part of the business is such that the malice is inherent
in each separate part, will you decide that the entire business
and the whole transaction is untainted with malice 1 What
will Quhitius say to this ? Surely he has nothing to say, no one
point, I will not say on which he is able to stand, but on which
he even imagines that he is able. For, first of all, he ad-
vanced this argument, that nothing can be done by the malice
of a household. By this topic he was tending not merely to
defend Fabius, but to put an end utterly to all judicial pro-
ceedings of this sort. For if that is brought before the court
with reference to a household, which a household is absolutely
incapacitated from doing, there is evidently no trial at all ; all
must inevitably be acquitted for the same reason. If this were
the only case, (it would be well, indeed, if it were,) but if
it were the only case, still you, 0 judges, being such as you
are, ought to be unwilling that an affair of the greatest import-
ance, aSecting not only the welfere of the entire republic but
also the fortunes of individuals — that a most dignified tribimal,
one established with the greatest deliberation, and for the
weightiest reasons, should appear to be put an end to by you.
But this is not the only thing at stake. ♦ ♦ *
* * the decision in this case is waited for with so much
anxiety as shows that it is expected to rule not one case only,
but all cases. ♦ * ♦ ♦ ♦
Shall I say that violence was done by the household of
Publius Fabius 1 Our adversaries do not deny it. That
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FOB M. TULLIUa II
damage was done to Marcus Tullius 1 You grant that— I have
carried one point. That this violence was done by armed
men ? You do not deny that — I have carried a second point
You deny that it was done with malice ; on this point we
join issue. * * , ♦ ♦ ♦
Nor, indeed, do I see any need of looking for arguments by
which that tnvial and insignificant defence of his may be re-
futed and done away with. And yet I must speak to the state-
ments which Quintius has made ; not that they have anything
to do with the matter, but that it may not be thought that
anything has been granted by me, merely because it has
been overlooked.
You say that inquiry ought to be instituted whether the
men of Marcus Tullius were slain wrongfully or no. This is
the first inquiry that I make about the matter, — ^whether that
matter has come before the court or not. If it has not come^
why then need we say anything about it, or why need they
ask any questions about it 1 But if it has, what was your
object in making such a long speech to the praetor, to beg
him to add to the formula the word "wrongfully," and
because you had not succeeded, to appeal to the tribunes
of the people, and here before the coiurt to complain of the
injustice of the prsetor because he did not add |;he word
"wrongfully." When you were requesting this of the
praetor, — when you were appealing to the tribunes, you said
that you ought to have an opportunity given to you of
persuading the judges, if you could, that damage had not
been done to Marcus Tullius wrongfully. Though, therefore,
you wish that to be added to the formula of the trial, in
order to be allowed to speak to that point before the judges ;
though it was not added, do you nevertheless speak to it as if
you had gained the very thing which was refused to you ?
But the same words which MeteUus used in making his
decree, the others, whom you appealed to, likewise used
Was not this the language of them aU, — ^that although that
which a household was said to have done by means of men
armed and collected in a violent manner, could not possibly
be done rightly, still they would add nothing ? And they
were right, 0 judges. For if, when there is a refuge open
to them, still slaves commit these wickednesses with the
greatest audlicity, and masters avow them with the greatest
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12 OICERO'S ORATIONB.
shamelessness, what do you think would be the case if the
preetor were to decide that it is possible that such murders
should be committed lawfully ? Does it make any difference
whether the magistrates establish a defence for a crime, or
give people power and liberty to commit crime 1 In truth,
O ju(^es, the magistrates are not influenced by the extent ot
the damage, to assign a trial in this formula. For i? it were
the case, the magistrates would not give recuperators rather
than a judex,* — ^not an action against the whole family, but
against the one who was proceeded against by name ; nor
would the damages be estimated at fomfold, but at double ;
and to the word "damage" would be added the word
" wrongfully." Nor, indeed, does the magistrate who has
assigned this trial depart from the provisions of the Aquihan
law about other damage, in cases in which nothing is at issue
except the damage. And to this point the prsetor ought to
turn his attention.
In this trial, you see the question is about violence ; you
see the question is about armed men ; you see that the
demolition of houses, the ravaging of lands, the murders of
men, fire, plunder, and massacre are brought before the court.
And do you wonder that those who assigned this trial thought
it sufficient that it should be inquired whether these cruel,
and scandalous, and atrocious actions had been done or not ;
not whether they had been done rightly or wrongfully? The
praetors, then, have not departed from the Aquilian law which
was passed about damage ; but they appointed a very severe
course of proceeding in the case of armed men acting with
violence. Not that they thought that no inquiry was ever
to be made as to the right or the wrong ; but they did
not think it fit that they who preferred to manage their
business by arms rather than by law should argue the ques-
tion of right and wrong. Nor did they refuse to add the
word " wrongfully " because they would not add it in other
cases ; but they did not think that it was possible for slaves
to take arms and collect a band rightfully. Nor did they
refuse because they thought, that if this addition were made,
it would be possible to persuade such men as these judges
that it had not been wrongfully done, but because they would
* We are not acquainted with the difference between J^he judex and
the recuperatores. Vide Smith, Diet Ant p. 529, y. Judex in init
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FOB M. TULLIU8. IS
not appear to put a shield in the hands of those men in
a court of justice, whom they had summoned before the
court for taking those arms which they did take.
The same prohibitory law about violence existed in the
time of our ancestors which exists now. " From which you, or
your housel^old, or your agent have this year driven him, or
his household, or his agent, by violence." Then there is added,
with reference to the man who is being proceeded against,
"When he was the owner;" and this further addition also,
"Of what he possessed, having acquired it neither by violence,
nor secretly, nor as a present." The man who is said to have
driven another away by violence has many pleas of defence
allowed him, (and if he can prove any one of them to the
satisfaction of the judge, then, even if he confesses that he
drove him out by violence, he must gain his cause,) either
that he who has been driven out was not the owner, or that
he had got possession from him himself by violence, or
by stealth, or as a present. Our ancestors left so many pleas
of defence, by which he might gain his cause, even to the
man who confessed himself guilty of violence.
Come, now, let us consider another prohibitory law, which
has also been now established on account of the iniquity
of the times, and the excessive licentiousness of men.
And he read me the law out of the Twelve Tables, which "^ ^
permits a man to kill a thief by night, and even by day if
he defends himself with a weapon ; and an ancient law out
of the sacred laws, which allows any one to be put to death
with impunity who has assaulted a tribune of the people.
I imagine I need say no more about the laws.
And now I, for the first time in this aflto, ask this ques-
tion : — What connexion the reading of these laws had with
this trial 1 Had the slaves of Marcus TuUius assaulted any
tribune of the people ? I think not. Had they come by
night to the house of Publius Fabius to steal ? Not even
that. Had they come by day to steal, and then had they
defended themselves with a weapon ? It cannot be affirmed.
Therefore, according to those laws which you have read, cer-
tainly that man's household had no right to slay the slaves of
Marcus Tullius. •
" Ob-*' says he, " I did not read it because of its bearing on
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14 CICEBO'S OBATZONB.
that subject, but that you might understand this, that it did
not appear to our ancestors to be anything so utterly intolera-
ble for a man to be slain." But, in the first place those very
laws which you read, (to say nothing of other points,) prove
how utterly our ancestors disapproved of any man being slain
unless it was absolutely unavoidable. First of all, there is that
holy law which armed men petitioned for, that unarmed men
might be free from danger. Wherefore it was only reasonable
for them to wish the person of that magistrate to be hedged
round with the protection of the laws, by whom the laws
themselves are protected. The Twelve Tables forbid a thief —
that is to say, a plunderer and a robber — to be slain by day,
«ven when you catch him, a self-evideiit enemy, within your
walls. " Unless he defends himself with a weapon," says the
law ; not even if he has come with a weapon, unless he uses
it, and resists ; " you shall not kill him. If he resists, eindo-
ploratOj* that is to say, raise an outcry, that people may hear
you and come to your aid. What can be added more to this
merciful view of the case, when they did not allow that it
might be lawftd for a man to defend his own life in his own
house without witnesses and umpires ?
Who is there who ought more to be pardoned, (since you
bring me back to the Twelve Tables,) than a man who without
being aware of it kills another 1 No one, I think. For this
is a silent law of humanity, that punishment for intentions,
but not for fortune, may be exacted of a man. Still our an-
cestors did not pardon even this. For there is a law in the
Twelve Tables, " If a weapon escapes from the hand" * *
If any one slays a thief, he slays him wrongfully. Why ?
Because there is no law established by which he may do so.
What ? suppose he defended himself with a weapon ) Then
he did not day him wrongftilly. Why so 1 Because there is
a law * * » ♦ *
Still it would have been done by violence. * * Still in that
very spot which belonged to you, you not only could not law-
fully day the slaves of Marcus Tullius, but even if you had
demolished the house without his knowledge, or by violence,
because he had built it in your land and defended his act on
the groimd of its being his, it would be decided to have been
done by violence, or secretly. Now, do you yoiuBelf decide
how true it is, that, when your household had no power to
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lOB X. TULUUB. 15
I
throw down a few tiles with impunity, he had power to com-
mit an extensiye massacre without violating the law. I( now
that that building has been demolished, I myself were this
day to prosecute him on the ground " that it was done by
violence, or secretly," you must inevitably either make resti-
tution according to the sentence of an arbitrator, or you must
be condemned in the amount of your security. Now, will you
be able to make it seem reasonable to such men as these
judges, that, though you had no power of your own right to
demolish the building, because it was, as you maintain, on
your land, you had power of your own right to slay the men
who were in that edifice 1
" But my slave is not to be found, who was seen with your
daves. But my cottage was burnt by your slaves." What
reply am I to make to this f I have proved that it was Mse.
Still I will admit it. What comes next ? Does it follow from
this that the household of Marcus Tullius ought to be mur-
dered 1 Scarcely, in truth, that they ought to be flogged ;
scarcely, that they ought to be severely reprimanded. But
granting that you were ever so severe ; the matter could be
tried in the usual course of law, by an every-day sort of tiiaL
What was the need of violence 1 what was the need of armed
men, of slaughter, and of bloodshed %
" But perhaps they would have proceeded to attack me."
This, in their desperate case, is neither a speech nor a defence,
but a mere guess, a sort of divination. Were they coming to
attack him ? Whom 1 Fabiua With what intention ? To
kill him. Why? to gain what ? how did you find it out I
And that I may set forth a plain case as briefly as possible, is
it possible to doubt, 0 judges, which side seems to have been
the attacking party 1 — Those who came to the house, or those
who remained in the house 1 Those who were slain, or those,
of whose number not one man was wounded 1 Those who
had no imaginable reason for acting so, or those who confess
that they did act so ? But suppose I were to believe that
you were afraid of being attacked, who ever laid down such a
principle as this, or who could have this granted him without
extreme danger to the whole body of citizens, that he might
lawfully kill a man, if he only said that he was afraid of being
hereafter killed by him?
[The rest of this oration is lost.]
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16 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
THE FRAGMENTS WHICH REMAIN OF THE SPEECH OP
M. T. CICERO ON BEHALF OF MARCUS FONTEHJS,
TBI ARGUXEKT.
Fonteius bad been praetor of Gallia Narbonenaia for three years, and
was accused now by the people of the province, and by Induciomarus,
one of their princes, of great oppression and exaction in his govern-
ment, and especially of imposing an arbitrary tax upon their wines.
There were two hearings of this cause, but we have only this one
speech of Cicero's with reference to it remaining; and this is in a very
mutilated state.
I. * * For I defend Marcus Fonteius, 0 judges, on this
ground, and I assert that after the passing of the Valerian
law, from the time that Marcus Fonteius was quaestor till the
time when Titus Crispinus was qucestor, no one paid it other-
wise. I say that he followed the example of all his prede-
cessors, and that all those who came after him, followed his.
What, then, do you accuse 1 what do you find fault with ?
For because in these accounts, which he says were begun by
Hirtuleius, he misses the assistance of Hirtuleius, I cannot
think that he either does wrong himself, or wishes you to do
wrong. For I ask you, 0 Marcus Ploetorius, whether you will
consider our case established, if Marcus Fonteius, in the matter
respecting which he is now accused by you, has the man whom
you praise above all others, namely Hirtuleius, for his ex-
ample ; and if Fonteius is found to have done exactly the
same as Hirtuleius in the matters in which you commend
Hirtuleius ? You find fieiult with the description of payment.
The public registers prove that Hirtuleius paid in the same
manner. You praise him for having established these pecu-
liar accounts. Fonteius established the same, with reference
to the same kind of money. For, that you may not ignorantly
imagine that these accounts refer to some different description
of debt, know that they were established for one and the same
reason, and with reference to one and the same sort of money.
For when ♦ # ■ # # #
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FOR M. FONTEIUS. 17
II. ***** No one — no one, I say, 0 judges — ^will be
found, to say that he gave Marcus Fonteius one sesterce
during his prsetorship, or that he appropriated one out of that
money which was paid to him on account of the treasury.
In no account-books is there any hint of such a robbery ;
among all the items contained in them there will not be found
one trace of any loss or diminution of such monies. But all
those men whom we ever see accused and found fault with by
this sort of inquiry, are overwhelmed with witnesses ; for it
is difi&cult for him who has given money to a magistrate to
avoid being either induced by dislike of him, or compelled by
scrupulousness, to mention it ; and in the next place, if the
witnesses are deterred from appearing by any influence, at all
events the account-books remain imcorrupted and honest.
Suppose that every one was ever so friendly to Fonteius ; that
such a number of men to whom he was perfectly imknown,
and with whom he was utterly unconnected, spared his life,
and consulted his character ; still, the facts of the case itself,
the consideration of the documents, and the composition of
the account-books, have this force, that from them, when they
are once given in and received, everything that is forged,
or stolen, or that has disappeared, is detected. All those
men made entries qf sums of money having been received for
the use of the Koman people ; if they immediately either
paid or gave to others equally large sums, so that what was
received for the Eoman people was paid to some one or other,
at all events nothing can have been embezzled. If any of
them took any money home * * *
III. Oh, the good faith of gods and men ! no witness is
found in a case involving a sum of three million two hundred
thousand sesterces ! Among how many men ? Among more
than six himdred. In what countries did this transaction
take place 1 In this place, in this very place which you see.
Was the money given irregularly? No money at all was
touched without many memoranda. What, then, is the
meaning of this accusation, which finds it easier to ascend
the Alps than a few steps of the treasury ; which defends the
treasury of the Ruteni with more anxiety than that of the
Roman people ; which prefers using imknown witnesses to
known ones, foreign witnesses to citizens ; which thinks that
it is establishing a charge more plainly by the capricious evi-
VOL. II. 0
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18 OIOERO'S ORATIONS.
dence of barbarians than by documents written by our fellow-
citizens 1 Of two magistracies, each of which is occupied in
handling and dealing with large sums of money, the trium-
virate* and the qusestorship, such accurate accounts have been
rendered, that in those things which were done in the sight of
men, which affected many men's interests, and which were set
• forth both in public and private registers, no hint of robbery,
no suspicion of any offence can possibly arise. The embassy to
[ Spain followed, in a most disturbed time of the republic ;
' when, on the arrival of Lucius Sylla in Italy, great armies
quarrelled about the tribunals and the laws; and in this
desperate state of the republic * * *
If no money was paid, of what sum is that fiftieth a part?
******
Since his cause is not the same as that of Verres
» * * » * *
a great quantity of com from Gaul ; infantry, and a most
numerous army from Gaul, a great number of cavalry from
Gaul * * *
That after this the Gauls would drink their wine more
diluted, because they thought that there was poison in it
I * * * * ^i^g^^ ijj ^i^Q ^jjjjQ q£ ^jjjg prsetor GauP was^
overwhelmed with debt. From whom do they say that loans
of such sums were procured] From the Gauls? By no
means. From whom then 1 From Roman citizens who are
^ There were several sorts of triumviri who were concerned in the
pecuniary afiaird of the state : the triumviri mensariif who were a sort of
bankers, but who seem to have been permanently employed by the
state, in whose hands we read, that not only the serarium, but iJso
private individuals deposited sums of money which they had to dispose
of; {Vide Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 613, y. Mensarii ;) the triumviri
monetalee, who had the whole superintendence of the mint, and of the
money that was coined in it ; and the triumviri capitcUes, who, among
their other duties, enforced the payment of fines due to the state, and the
triumviri sacria conquirendia donisque perseqaendis, who seem to have
had to take care that all property given or consecrated to the gods was
applied to that purpose, and who must therefore have been responsible
for its application. Vide Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 1009, v. Triumviri,
* The passages preceding this figure do not occur in old editions ; they
were found in the Vatican by Niebuhr, and published by him in 1820.
They are still in a very corrupt state. The Roman figures at the heads
of the subsequent chapters are those which occur in aU older editions, in
which the oration began here.
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FOR M. FONTEIUS. 19
trading in Gaul. Why do we not hear what they have got t >
say? Why are no accounts pf theirs produced? I mysoli*
pursue and press the prosecutor, 0 judges ; I pursue him,
I say, and I demand witnesses. In this cause I am taking
more pains and trouble to get them to produce their wit-
nesses, than other advocates for the defence usually take to
refute them. I say this boldly, 0 judges, but I do not assert
it rashly. All Gaul is filled with traders, — is full of Roman
citizens. No Gaul does any business without the aid of a
Roman citizen ; not a single sesterce in Gaul ever changes
hands without being entered in the account-books of Roman
citizens. See how I am descending, 0 judges, how far I seem
to be departing from my ordinary habits, from my usual
caution and diligence. Let one set of accounts be produced,
in which there is any trace whatever which gives the least
hint of money having been given to Fonteius; let them
produce out of the whole body of traders, of colonists, of
publicans, of agriculturists, of graziers, but one witness, and
I will allow that this accusation is true. 0 ye immortal
gods ! what sort of a cause is this ] what sort of a defence t
Marcus ^Fonteius was governor of the province of Gaul, which
consists of those tribes of men and of cities, some of whom
(to say nothing of old times) have in the memory of the
present generation carried on bitter and protracted wars with
the Roman people ; some have been lately subdued by our
generals, lately conquered in war, lately made remai'kable
by the triumphs which we have celebrated over them, and
the monuments which we have erected, and lately mulcted, by
the senate, of their lands and cities : some, too, who have
fought in battle against Marcus Fonteius himself, have by his
toil and labour been reduced under the power and dominion
of the Roman people. There is in the same province Narbo
Martins,* a colony of our citizens, set up as a watch-tower of the
Roman people, and opposed as a bulwark to the attacks of those
very natives. There is also the city of Massilia, which I have
already mentioned, a city of most gallant and faithful allies,
who have made amends to the Roman people for the dangers
to which they have been exposed in the Grallic wars, by their
service and a^istance ; there is, besides, a large number of
Roman citizens, and most honourable men.
^ Narbo Kartias is the present town of Narbonne.
o2
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20 Cicero's orations.
II. Of this province, consisting of this variety of people,
Marcus Fonteius, as I have said, was governor. Those who
were enemies, he subdued ; those who had lately been so, he
compelled to depart from the lands of which they had been
deprived by the senate. From the rest, who had been often
conquered in great wars, on purpose that they might be ren-
dered obedient for ever to the Roman people, he exacted large
troops of cavalry to serve in those wars which at that time
were being carried on all over the world by the Roman
people, and large sums of money for their pay, and a great
quantity of com to support our armies in the Spanish war.
The man who has done all these things is now brought before
a court of law. You who were not present at the transactions
are, with the Roman people, taking cognisance of the cause ;
those men are our adversaries who were compelled to leave
their lands by the command of Cnseus Pompeius ; those men
are our adversaries who having escaped from the war, and the
slaughter which was made of them, for the first time dare to
stand a^inst Marcus Fonteius, now that he is imarmed.
What of the colonists of Narbo ? what do they wish 1 what
do they think V They wish this man's safety to be ensured by
you ; they think that theirs has been ensured by him. What
of the state of the Massilians? They distinguished him
while he was among them by the greatest honours which they
had to bestow ; and now, though absent from this place, they
pray and entreat you that their blameless character, their
panegyric, and their authority may appear to have some
weight with you in forming your opinions. What more shall
I say ] What is the inclination of the Roman citizens 1 There
is no one of that immense body who does not consider this
man to have deserved well of the province, of the empire, of
our allies, and of the citizens.
III. Since, therefore, you now know who wish Marcus
Fonteius to be attacked, and who wish him to be defended,
decide now what your own regard for equity, and what the
dignity of the Roman people requires ; whether you prefer
trusting your colonists, your traders, your most friendly and
ancient allies, and consulting their interests, or the interests
of those men, whom, on account of their passionate dis-
position, you ought not to trust ; on accoimt of their dis-
loyalty you ought not to honour. What, if I produce also a
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FOR M. FONTBIUS. 21
still greater number of most honourable men to bear testi-
mony to this man*s .virtue and innocence ? Will the una-
nimity of the Gauls still be of more wdght than that of men
of such great authority 1 When Fonteius was governor of
Gaul, you know, 0 judges, that there were very large armies
of the Koman people in the two Spains, and very illustrious
generals. How many Roman knights were there, how many
military tribimes, how many ambassadors came to them !
what eminent men they were, and how frequently did they
come 1 Besides that, a very large and admirably appointed
army of Cn»us Pompeius wintered in Gaul while Marcus
Fonteius was governor. Does not Fortune herself appear to
have intended that they should be a sufficient number of
sufficiently competent witneases of those things which were
done in Gaul while Marcus Fonteius was prsetor ) Out of all
that number of men what witness can you produce in this
cause] Who is there of all that body of men whose authority
you are willing to cite ? We will use that very man as our
panegyrist and our witnesa Will you doubt any longer, 0
judges, that that which I stated to you at the beginning is
most true, that there is another object in this prosecution,
beyond causing others, after Marcus Fonteius has been over-
whelmed by the testimonies of these men, from whom many
contributions have been exacted, greatjy against their will,
for the sake of the republic, to be for the friture more lax in
governing, when they see these men attacked, who are such
men that, if they are crushed, the empire of the Roman
people cannot be maintained in safety.
IV. A charge has also been advanced that Marcus Fonteius
has made a profit from the making of roads; taking money
either for not compelling people to make roads, or for not
disapproving of roads which had been made. If all the cities
have been compelled to make roads, and if the works of many
of them have not been passed, then certainly both charges
are felse, — ^the charge that money has been given for exemp-
tion, when no one was exempted; and for approval, when
many were disapproved of What if we can shift this charge
on other most unimpeachable names 1 not so as to transfer
any blame to others, but to show that these men were
appointed to superintend that road-making, who are easily
able to show that their duty was performed, and performed
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22 OICE^O'S ORATIONS.
well. Will you still urge all these charges against Marcus
Fonteius, relying on angry witnesses? When Marcus Fonteius
was hindered by more important affairs of the republic, and
when it concerned the republic that the Domitian road should
be made, he entrusted the business to his lieutenants, men
of the highest characters, Caius Annius, BeUienus, and Caius
Fonteius. So they superintended it; they ordered what
seemed necessary, as became their dignity, and they sanc-
tioned what seemed well done. And you have at all events
had opportunities of knowing these things, both from our
documents, from documents which you yoiurselves have writ-
ten, and from others which have been sent to you, and
produced before you; and if you have not already read
them, now hear us read what Fonteius wrote about those
matters to his lieutenants, and what they wrote to him in
answer.
[The letters sent to Caius Annius the Lievtenanty and to Caius
Fonteius tJie Lieutenant ; alsoj the letters received from Caius
Annius the Lieutenant, and from Caius Fonteius the Lieu-
tenant, are readi\
I think it is plain enough, 0 judges, that this question
about the road-making does not concern Mai-cus Fonteius,
and that the business was managed by these men, with whom
no one can find &ult.
V. Listen now to the facts relating to the charge about
wine, which they meant to be the most odious, and the
most important charge. The charge, 0 judges, has been
thus stated by Plaetorius : that it had not occurred to
Fonteius for the first time when he was in Gaul to establish a
transit duty on wine, but that he had thought of the plan in
Italy, before he departed from Rome. Accordingly, that
Titurius had exacted at Tolosa fourteen denarii for every
amphora* of wine, under the name of transit duty ; that
Fortius and Numius at Crodunum had exacted three vic-
toriati ; that Serveus at Vulchalo had exacted two victoriati ;
and in those districts they believe that transit duty was
exacted by these men at Vulchalo, in case of any one turning
1 The amphora contained nearly six gallons ; a denarius, as has been
said before, was about eightpence-halfpenny ; so that this duty was, as
nearly as may be, one and eightpence a-gallon. A victoriatus was half
ft denarius.
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FOR M. FOKTBIUS. 23
tusdde to Cobiamachus, which is a small town between Tolosa
and Narbo, and not wishing to proceed so &r as Tolosa.
Elesiodnlus eisuded only six denarii &om those who were
taking wine to the enemj.^ I see, 0 judges, that this is
3, charge, important both from the sort of crime imputed,
(for a tax is said to have been imposed on our produce, and I
confess that a very large sum of money might have been
amassed by that means,) and from its unpopular nature; for
our adversaries have endeavoured to make this charge as
widely known as possible, by making it the subject of their
conversatiop. But I think that the more serious a charge is,
which is proved to be feJse, the greater is the wickedness of
that man who invented it; for he wishes by the magnitude of
the accusation to prejudice the minds of those who hear it,
4S0 that the truth may afterwards iind a difficult entrance into
them. * * * * *
[Everything relating to the charge ahotU the wine, to the war
toith the*Vocontii, and the arrangement of winter quarters, is
wanting."]
VI. * * * But the Gauls deny this. But the circumstances
of the case and the force of arguments prove it. Can jbhen a
judge refuse belief to witnesses ? He not only can, but he
ought, if they are covetous men, or angry men, or conspira-
tors, or men utterly void of religion and conscience. In fact,
if Marcus Fonteius is to' be considered guilty just because
the Gauls say so, what need have I of a wise judge ? what
need have I of an impartial judge? what need is there of an
intelligent advocate 1 For the Gfauls say so. We cannot deny
it. If you think this is the duty of an able and experienced
and impartial judge, that he must without the slightest hesi-
tation believe a thing because the witnesses say it ; then the
Goddess of Safety herself cannot protect the innocence of
brave men. But if, in coming to a decision on such matters, '
the wisdom of the judge has a wide field for its exercise in )
considering every circumstance, and in weighing each accord- -^
ing to its importance, then in truth your part in considering
the case is a more important and serious one than mine is in
* The whole of this passage is very corrupt ; the last line or two so
hopelessly so, and so unintelligible, that pe.'haps it would have been
l>etter to have marked them with asterisks instead of attempting to
translate them.
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24 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
stating it For I have only to question the witness as to
each oircumstance once, and that, too, briefly, and often indeed
I have not to question him at all ; lest I should seem to be
giving an angry man an opportimity of making a speech,
or to be attributing an imdue weight to a covetous man.
You can revolve the same matter over and over again in your
minds, you can give a long consideration to the evidence of
one witness ; and, if we Imve shown an imwillingness to ex-
amine any witness, you are boimd to consider what has been
our reason for keeping silence. Wherefore, if you think that
to believe the witnesses implicitly is enjoined to a judge, either
by the law or by his duty, thei-e is no reason at all why one
man should be thought a better or a wiser judge than another.
For judgment formed by the mere ears is single and simple
enough ; it is a power given promiscuously to all in common,
whether they are fools or wise men. What, then, are the
opportunities which wisdom has of distinguishing itself?
When can a foolish and credulous auditor be distinguished
fi*om^ a scrupulous and discerning judge? When, forsooth,
the statements which are made by the witnesses are com-
mitted to his conjectures, to his opinion, as to the authority,
the impartiality of mind, the modesty, the good feith, the
scrupulousness, the regard for a fair reputation, the care, and
the fear with which they are made.
VII. Or will you, in the case of the testimonies of bar-
barians, hesitate to do what very often within obr recollection
and that of our fathers, the wisest judges have not thought
that they ought to hesitate to do with respect to the most
illustrious men of our state ? For they reused belief to the
evidence of Cn»us and Quintus Caepio, and to Lucius and
Quintus Metellus, when they were witnesses against Quintus
Pompeiiis, a new man ; for virtuoiis, and noble, and valiant
as they were, still the suspicion of some private object to be
gained^ and some private grudge to be gratified, detracted from
their credibility and aufiiority as witnesses. Have wo seen
any man, can we with truth speak of any man, as having
been equal in wisdom, in dignity, in consistency, in all other
virtues, in all the distinguishing qualities of honour, and
genius, and splendid achievements, to Marcus iEmilius Scau-
rus ? And yet, though, when he was not on his oath, almdst
the whole world was governed by his nod, yet, when he was
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FOR K. FONTBIUS. 25
on his oath, his evidence was not believed against Cains Fim-
bria, nor against Cains Memmius. They, who were the judges,
were imwiUing that such a road should be opened to enmities,
as for every man to be able to destroy by his evidence who-
ever he hated. Who is there who does not know how great
was the modesty, how great the abilities, how great the influ-
ence of Lucius Crassus 1 And yet he, whose mere conversa-
tion had the authority of evidence, could not, by his actual
evidence, establish the things which he had stated against
Marcus Marcellus with hostile feelings. There was — there
was in the judges of those times, 0 judges, a divinely-inspired
and singular acuteness, as they thought that they were judges,
not only of the defendant, but also of the accuser and of the
witness, as to what was invented, what was brought into the
case by chance or by the opportunity, what was imported
into it throu^ corruption, what was distorted by hope or by
fear, what appeared to proceed from any private desire, or any
private enmity. And if the judge does not embrace all these
considerations in his dehberation, if he does not survey and
comprehend them all in his mind, — if he thinks that whatever
is said from that witness-box, proceeds from some oracle, then
in truth it will be sufficient, as I have said before, for any
judge to preside over this court, and to discharge this duty,
who is not deaf. There will be no reason in the world for
requiring any one, whoever he may be, to be either able or
experienced, to qualify him for judging causes.
YIII. Had then those Roman knights, whom we ourselves
have seen, who have lately flourished in the repubhc, and in
the courts, so much courage and so much vigour as to refuse
belief to Marcus Scaurus when a witness; and are you afraid
to disbelieve the evidence of the Volc« and of the AJlobrogesI
If it was not right to give credence to a hostile witness, was
Crassus more hostile to Marcellus, or Scaurus to Fimbria, on
account of any political differences, or any domestic quarrels,
than the Gauls are to Fonteius ? For of the Gauls, those
even who stand on the best ground have been compelled once
and again, and sorely against their will, to ftimish cavalry,
money, and com ; and of the rest, some have been deprived
of their land in ancient wars, some have been overwhelmed
and subdued in war by this very man. If those men ought
not to be believed who appear to say anything covetously
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26 OIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
with a view tio some private gain, I think that the Caepios and
Metelli proposed to themselves a greater gain &om the con-
demnation of Quintns Pompeius, as by that they would have
got rid of a formidable adversary to all their views, than all
the Gauls hoped for from the diasister of Marcus Fonteius, in
which that province believed that all its safety and hhertj
-consisted.
If it is proper to have a regard to the men themselves, (a
thing which in truth in the case of witnesses ought to be of
the greatest weight,) is any one, the most honourable man in
all Gaul to be compared, I will not say with the most honour-
able men of our city, but even with the meanest of Roman
citizens 1 Does Induciomarus know what is the meaning of
giving evidence 1 Is he affected with that awe which moves
«very individual among us when he is brought into that box ?
IX. Recollect, 0 judges, with how much pains you are
accustomed to labour, considering not only what you are
going to state in your evidence, but even what words you
shall use, lest any word should appear to be used too mode-
rately, or lest on the other hand any expression should appear
to have escaped you from any private motive. You take
pains even so to mould your coimtenances, that no suspicion
oi any private motive may be excited ; that when you come
forward there may be A sort of silent opinion of your modesty
and scrupulousness, and that, when you leave the box, that
reputation may appear to have been careMly preserved and
retained. I suppose Induciomarus, when he gave his evidence,
had all these fears and all these thoughts ; he, who left out
of lus whole evidence that most considerate word, to which we
are all habituated, " I think," a word which we use even when
we are relating on our oath what we know of our own know-
ledge, what we ourselves have seen ; and said that he knew
everything he was stating. He feared, forsooth, lest he should
lose any of his reputation in your eyes and in those of the
Roman people ; lest any such report should get abroad that
Induciomarus, a man of such rank, had spoken with such
partiality, with such rashness. The truth was, he did not
understand that in giving his evidence there was anything
which he was bound to display either to his own countrymen
or to our accusers, except his voice, his countenance, and his
«.udacity. Do you think that those nations are influenced in
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FOB M. FOKTBID& 27
giving their evidence by the sanctity of an oath, and by the
fear of the immortal gods, which are so widely different jQx>m
other nations in their habits and natural disposition ? For
other nations undertake wars in defence of their religious
feelings ; they wage war against the religion of every people :
other nations when waging war beg for sanction and pardon
from the immortal gods ; they have waged war with the im-
mortal gods themselves.
X. These are the nations which formerly marched to
such a distance from their settlements, as far as Delphi, to
attack and pillage the Pythian Apollo, and the oracle of
the whole world. By these same nations, so pious, so scrupu-
lous in giving their evidence, was the Capitol besieged, and
that Jupiter, under the obligations of whose name our ances-
tors decided that the good faith of all witnesses should be
pledged. Lastly, can anything appear holy or solemn in the
eyes of those men, who, if ever they are so much influenced
by any fear as to think it necessary to propitiate the immortal
^ gods, defile their altars and temples with human victims 1 So
that they cannot pay proper honour to religion itself without
first violating it with wickedness. For who is ignorant that,
to this very day, they retain that savage and barbarous custom
of sacrificing men 1 What, therefore, do you suppose is the
good foith, what the piety of those men, who think that even
the immortal gods can be most easily propitiated by the
wickedness and murder of men 1 Will you connect your own
religious ideas with these witnesses 1 Will you think that
anything is said holily or moderately by these men 1 Will
your minds, pure and upright as they are, bring themselves
into such a state that, when all our ambassadors who for the
last three years have arrived in GaxH, when all the Roman
knights who have been in that province, when all the traders
of that province, when, in shOTt, all the allies and friends of
the Roman people who are in Gaul, wish Marcus Fonteius to
be safe, and extol him on their oaths both in public and in
private, you should still prefer to give your decision in unison
with the Gauls 1 Appearing to comply with what 1 With
the wishes of men ? Is then the wish of our enemies to have
more authority in your eyes than that of our countrymen ?
With the d%nity of the witnesses? Can you then possibly
pref(n: strangers to people whom you know, imjust men to
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2o OIOERO S ORATIONS.
just ones, foreigners to countrymen, covetous men to mode-
rate ones, mercenary men to disinterested ones, impious men
to conscientious ones, men who are the greatest enemies to
our dominions and to our name, to good and loyal allies and
citizens f
XI. Are you then hesitating, 0 judges, when all these
nations have an innate hatred to and wage incessant war with
the name of the Roman people f Do you think that, with
their military cloaks and their breeches, they come to us in a
lowly and submissive spirit, as these do, who having suffered
injuries fly to us as suppliants and inferiors to beg Qie aid of
the judges ? Nothing is further from the truth. On the con-
trary, they are strolling in high spirits and with their heads
up, all over the forum^ uttering threatening expressions, ard
terrifying men with barbarous and ferocious language ; which,
in truth, I should not believe, 0 judges, if I had not repeatedly
heard such things from the mouths of the accusers themselves
in your presence, — when they warned you to take care, lest,
by acquitting this man, you should excite some new GaUic
war. If, 0 judges, everytlung was wanting to Marcus Fonteius
in this cause ; if he appeared before the court, having passed
a disgraceful youth and an in&mous life, having b^n con-
victed by the evidence of virtuous men of having discharged
his duties as a magistrate (in which his conduct has been
under your own eye) and as a lieutenant, in a most scan-
dalous manner, and being hated by all his acquaintances ; if
in his trial he were overwhelmed with the oral and documen-
tary evidence of the Narbonnese colonists of the Roman
people, of our most faithful allies the Massilians, and of all
the citizens of Rome ; still it would be your duty to take the
greatest care, lest you should appear to be afraid of those
men, and to be influenced by their threats and menaced
terrors, who were so prostrate and subdued in the times of
your fethers and forefisithers, as to be contemptible. But
now, when no good man says a word against him, but all
your citizens and allies extol him ; when those men attack
him who have repeatedly attacked this city and this empire ;
and when the enemies of Marcus Fonteius threaten you and
the Roman people ; when his friends and relations come to
you as suppliants, will you hesitate to show not only to your
own citizens, who are mainly influenced by glory and praise.
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FOR M. FONTBIUS. 29
but also to foreign tribes and nations, that you, in giving your
votes, prefer sparing a citizen to yielding to an enemy ?
XII. Among other reasons, this, 0 judges, is a very great
reason for his acquittal, to prevent any notable stain and dis-
grace from falling on our dominion, by news going to Gaul,
that the senate and knights of the Eoman people gave their
decisions in a criminal trial just as the Gauls pleased ; being
influenced not by their evidence, but by their threats. But in
that case, if they attempt to make war upon us, we must sum-
mon up Caius Marius from the shades below, in order that he
may be equal in war to that great man, that threatening and
arrogE^nt Induciomarus. Cnseus Domitius and Quintus Maxi-
mus must be raised from the dead, that they may again sub-
due and crush the nation of the Allobroges and the other
tribes by their arms ; or, since that indeed is impossible, we
must beg my friend Marcus Plsetorius to deter his new clients
from making war, and to oppose by his entreaties their angry
feelings and formidable violence ; or, if he be not able to do
so, we will ask Marcus Fabius, his junior counsel, to pacify the
Allobroges, since among their tribe the name of Fabius is
held in the highest honoiu*, and induce them either to be willing
to remain quiet, as defeated and conquered nations usually
are, or else to make them understand that they are holding
out to the Roman people not a terror of war, but a hope
of triumph.
And if, even in the case of an ignoble defendant, it would
not be endurable that those men should think they had
effected anything by their threats, what do you think you
ought to do in the case of Marcus Fonteius? concerning whom,
0 judges, (for I think that I am entitled to say this now, when
1 have almost come to the termination of two trials,) concern-
ing whom, I say, you have not only not heard any disgraceful
charge invented by his enemies, but you have not even heard
any really serious reproach. Was ever any defendant, espe-
cially when he had moved in such a sphere as this man, as
a candidate for honours, as ^ officer in command, and as a
governor, accused in such a way, that no disgraceful act, no
deed of violence, no baseness originating either in lust or inso-
lence or audacity, was attributed to him, if not with truth, at
least with some suspicious circumstances giving a reasonable
colouring to the invention ?
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30 CIOBRO'S ORATIONB.
XIII. We know that Marcus iEmilius Scaurus, the most
eminent man of our city, was accused by Marcus Brutus.
The orations are extant by which it can be seen that many
things are alleged. against Scaurus himself; no doubt falsely ;
but still they were alleged against him and urged against
him by an enemy. How many things were said against Mar-
cus AquiUius on his trial 1 How many against Lucius
Cotta 1 and, lastly, against Publius Kutilius 1 who, although
he was condemned, still appears to me to deserve to be
reckoned among the most virtuous and innocent men. Yet
that most upright and temperate man had many things
attributed to him on his trial, which involved suspicion of
adultery, and great licentiousness. There is an oration ex-
tant of a man, by far (in my opinion, that is,) the ablest and
most eloquent of all our countrymen, Caius Gracchus ; in
which oration Lucius Piso is accused of many base and wicked
actions. What a man to be so ^accused ! A man who was of
such virtue and integrity, that even in those most admirable
times, when it was not possible to find a thoroughly worthless
man, still he alone was called Thrifty. And when Gracchus
was ordering him to be summoned before the assembly, and his
lictor asked him which Piso, because there were many of the
name, " You are compelling me," says he, " to call my enemy,
Thrifty." That very man then, whom even his enemy could
not point out with sufficient clearness without first praising
him ; whose one surname pointed not only who he was, but
what sort of man he was ; that very man was, nevertheless, ex-
posed to a false and imjust accusation of disgracefcd conduct.
Marcus Fonteius has been accused in two trials, in such a way,
that nothing has been alleged against him from which the
slightest taint of lust, or caprice, or cruelty, or audacity can
be infeiTed. They not only have not mentioned any atrocious
deed of his, but they have not even found fe,ult with any ex-
pression used by him.
XIV. But if they had either had as much courage to tell a
lie, or as mucb ingenuity to invent one, as they feel eagerness
to oppress Fonteius, or as they have displayed licence in
abusing him ; then he would have had no better fortune, as
far as relates to not having disgraceful acts alleged against him,
than those men whom I have just mentioned.
You see then another Thrifty, — a thrifty man, I say, 0 judges^
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FOB M. FONTEIUS.> 31
and a- man moderate and temperate in every particular of his
life ; a man full of modesty, full of a sense of duty, fiill of reli-
gion, depending on your good faith and power, and placed in
your power in such a way as to be committed wholly to the
protection of your good faith.
Consider, therefore, whether it is more just that a most
honourable and brave man, that a most virtuous citizen, diould
be given up to the most hostile and ferocious nations, or
restored to his jfreedom, especially when there are so many
circumstances which cooperate in entreating your feivourable
disposition in aid of this man's safety. First of all, there i&
the antiquity of his family, which we are aware proceeds from
Tusoulum, a most illustrious municipality, and whose fame is
engraved and handed down on monuments of the exploits ot
its members ; secondly, there have been continual prsetorships
in that femily, which have been distinguished by every sort of
honour, and especially by the credit of unimpeachable inno-
^ cence ; besides that, there is the recent memory of his father^
by whose blood, not only the troop of Asculum, by whom he
was slain, but the whole of that social war has been stained
with the deep dye of wickedness ; lastly, there is the man
himself, honourable and upright in every particular of his
life, and in military affairs not only endued with the greatest
wisdom, and the most brilliant comage, but also skilful through
pergonal experience in carrying on war, beyond almost any
man of the present agd.
XV. Wherefore, if you do require to be reminded at all by
me, 0 judges, (which, in truth, you do not,) it seems to me
I may, witiiout presuming too much on my authority, give
you ^is gentle hint, — that you ought to consider that those
men are careftdly to be preserved by you, whose valour, and
energy, and good fortune in military affairs have been tried
and ascertained. There has been a greater abundance of such
men in the repubhc than there is now ; and when there was,
people consulted not only their safety, but their honour also.
What, then, ought you to do now, when military studies have
become obsolete among our youth, and when our best men
and our greatest generals have been taken from us, partly by
age, and partly by the dissensions of the state and ^e ill-
fortune of the republic 1 When so many wars are necessarily-
undertaken by us, when so many arise suddenly and imex*
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32 CICERO*S ORATIONS.
pectedly, do you not think that you ought to preserve this
man for the critical occasions of the republic, and to excite
others by his example to the pursuit of honour and virtue 1
Recollect what lieutenants Lucius Julius, and Publius Rutilius,
and Lucius Cato, and Cnseus Pompeius have lately had in war.
You will see that at that time there existed also Marcus Cor-
nutus, Lucius Cinna, and Lucius Sylla, men of praetorian
rank, and of the greatest skill in war; and, besides them,
Caius Marius, PubHus Didius, Quintus Catulus, and Publius
Crassus, men not learned in the science of war through books,
but accomplished and renowned by their achievements and
their victories. Come now, cast your eyes over the senate-
house, look thoroughly into every part of the republic; do
you see no possible event in which you may require men like
those? or, if any such event should arise, do you think that
the Roman people is at this moment rich in such men 1 And
if you carefully consider all these circumstances, you will
rather, 0 judges, retain at home, for yourselves and for your
children, a man energetic in undertaking the toils of war,
gallant in encountering its dangers, skilful in its practice and
its discipline, prudent in his designs, fortunate and successful
in their accomplishment, than deliver him over to nations
most hostile to the Roman people, and most cruel, by con-
demning him.
XVI. But the Gauls are attacking Fonteius with hostile
standards as it were ; they pursue him, and press upon him
with the most extreme eagerness, with the most extreme
audacity. I see it. But we, 0 judges, you being our helpers,
with many and strong defences, will resist that savage and in-
tolerable band of barbarians. Our first bulwark against their
attacks is Macedonia, a province loyal and well affected to the
Roman people, which says, that itself and its cities were pre-
served, not only by the wisdom, but even by the hand of
Fonteius, and which now repels the attacks and dangers of
the Gauls from his head, as it was defended itself from the
invasion and desolation of the Thracians. On the opposite .
side stands the further Spain, which is able in this case not
only to withstand the eagerness of the accusers by its own
honest disposition, but which can even refute the perjuries of
wicked men by its testimonies and by its panegyrics. And
even from GaiQ itself most &ithful and most important assist*
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FOB H. FONTEIUS. 33
ance 18 derived. As an assistance to this unhappy and inno-
cent man, the city of the Massilians has come forward, which
is labouring now, not only in order to appear to requite with
proper gratitude the exertions of the man by whom it has
been preserved, but which also believes that it has been placed
in those districts for that very object, and with that express
destiny, to prevent those nations from being able to injure
our countrymen. The colony of Narbonhe fights equally on
behalf of the safety of Marcus Fonteius, which, having been
lately delivered from the blockade of the enemy by this man,
is now moved at his misery and danger. Lastly, as is right
. in a Gallic war — as the principles and customs of our ancestors
enjoin — ^there is not one Boman citizen who thinks he requires
any excuse for being eager in this man's behalf All the
pubhcans of that province, all the farmers, all the graziers,
all the traders, with one heart and one voice, defend Marcus
Fonteius.
XVII. But if Induciomarus himself, the leader of the Allo-
broges, and of all the rest of the Gaids, despise such powerful
aid as this which we have, shall he still tear and drag away
this man from the embrace of his mother, a most admirable
and most miserable woman, and that, too, while you are look-
ing on 1 especially when a vestal virgin on the other side is
holding her own brother in her embraces, and imploring,
0 judges, your good feith, and that of the Roman people;
she who has been, on behalf of you and of your children,
occupied for so many years in propitiating the immortal gods,
in oixier now to be able to propitiate you when supplicating
for her own safety and that of her brother. What protection,
what comfort, will that mihappy maiden have left, if she loses
this her brother ? For other women can bring forth protec-
tors for themselves — can have in their homes a companion
and a partner in all their fortunes ; but to this maiden, what
is there that can be agreeable or dear, except her brother 1
Do not, 0 judges, allow the altars of the immortal gods, and
of our motiier Vesta, to lie reminded of your tribuiml by the
claily lamentations of a holy virgin. Beware lest that eternal
flame, which is now preserved by the nightly toils and vigils
of Fonteia, should be said to have been extinguished* by the
tears of your priestess. A vestal virgin is stretching out to-
wards you her suppliant hands, those same hands which she
VOL. n. D
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34 . Cicero's orations.
is accustomed to stretch out, on your behalf, to the immortal
gods. Consider how dangerous, how arrogant a deed it would
be for you to reject her entreaties, when, if the immortal
gods were to despise her prayers, all these things which we
see around us could not be preserved. Do not you see,
0 judges, that all of a sudden, Marcus Fonteius himself, brave
as he is, is moved to shed tears at the mention of his parent
and his sister ? — he who never has known fear in battle, he
who in arms has often thrown himself on the ranks and
numbers of the enemy, thinking, while he was facing such
dangers, that he left behind him the same consolation to his
relatives that his own father had left to him ; yet now, for
aU that, is agitated and alarmed, lest he should not only cease
to be an ornament and an assistant to his family, but lest
he shoTild even leave them eternal disgrace and ignominy,
together with the bitterest grief Oh how unequal is thy for-
tune, 0 Marcus Fonteius ! If you could have chosen, how
much would you have preferred perishing by the weapons of
the GaTils rather than by their perjuries ! For then virtue
would have been the companion of your life, glory your com-
rade in death; but now, what agony is it for you to endure
the sufferings caused by their power and victory over you, at
their pleasure, who have before now been either conquered by
your arms, or forced to submit against their will to your
authority. From this danger, 0 judges, defend a brave and
innocent citizen: take care to be seen to place more confi-
dence in our own witnesses than in foreigners; to have more
regard for the safety of our citizens than for the pleasure of
our enemies; to think the entreaties of her who presides over
your sacrifices of more importance than the audacity of those
men who have waged war against the sacrifices and temples
of all nations. Lastly, take care, 0 judges, (the dignity of the
Koman people is especially concerned in this,) to show that the
prayers of a vestal virgin have more influence over you than
the threats of Gaul.
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fOB ▲. OiBCINA. 35
THE ORATION OF M. T. CICERO IN BEHALF OP
AULUS CiECINA.
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36 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
man, to defeat by law and judicial proceedings the man with
whom he had declined contending in arms and violence. And
^butins appears to me to have been most especially auda-
cious in assembling and arming men, and most especially
impudent in his legal measures. Not only in that he has
dared to come before the court, (for that, although it is a
scandalous thing to do in a clear case, still is an ordinary
course for wicked and artful men to adopt,) but because he
has not hesitated to avow the very act which he is accused
of; imless, perhaps, his idea was this, — ^if ordinary^ violence
according to precedent had been used, he would not have had
any superior right of possession ; but as the violence was
committed in a way contrary to all law and precedent, Aulus
Csecina fled in alann with his Mends. And so in this count,
if he defends his cause according to the custom and esta-
blished principles of all men, he thinks that we shall not be
his inferiors in managing our case; but if he departs from all
usage, the more impudently he conducts himself, the more
likely to succeed shall he be : as if dishonesty had as much
influence in a court of justice as confidence in a scene of
violence, or as if we had not yielded at that time the more
willingly to his audacity, in order now with the greater ease
to resist his impudence. Therefore, 0 judges, I come now to
plead the cause in this trial on a very (Afferent plan from the
one I adopted at first. For then the hope of our cause
depended on the arguments I could use in our defence ; now
it rests on the confession of our adversary; — ^then I relied
on our witnesses; now I rely on theirs. And about them
I was formerly anxious, lest, if they were wicked men, they
should speak falsely, — lest, if they were thought honest men,
they should establish their case ; now I am very much at
ease on the subject. For, if they are good men, they assist
me by saying that on their oaths^ which I, not being on my
oath, am urging in accusation. But if they are not so
respectable, they do me no injury, since, if they are believed,
then the very facts which we urge in accusation are believed ;
^ The usual course on claiming possession of disputed property was for
the claimant to present himself with his Mends in the land, and then to
be driven off by the occupant This violence was via moribuB facia.
On this the claimant appealed to the praetor. But iBbutius had driven
Caecina off with armed men, and had used unnecessary and actual vio-
lence. This was via contra jus moremque.
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FOB A. OJSOINA. 37
and if credit be not given to them, then credit is refused to
the witnesses of onr adversary.
II. But when I consider the way in which they are con-
ducting their case, I do not see what more impudent thing
can be said ; when I consider your hesitation in giving your
decision, I am afraid that what they seem to have been doing
shamelessly, may have been done cunningly and wisely ; for
if they had denied that violence had been committed by
armed men, they would easily have been convicted in a plain
case by most unimpeachable witnesses : if they had confessed
it, and defended a deed which can never be rightfully done, as
having been done by them at that time legally, they hoped —
what, indeed, they gained — ^that they should give yqu cause to
deliberate, and inspire you with proper hesitation and scrupu-
lousness in deciding : and also, though that is a most scan-
dalous thing, they thought that the trial in this case would
appear to be not about the dishonesty of Sextus iEbutius,
but about th^ civil law. And in this case, if I had to plead
the cause of Aulus Ceecina alone, I should profess myself a
sufficiently capable defender of it, because I had behaved
with the greatest good feith and diligence ; and when these
qualities are found in an advocate, there is no reason, espe-
cially in a plain and simple matter, for requiring any ex-
traordinary ability. But as I have now to speak of those
rights which concern all men, — which were established by
our ancestors, and have been preserved to this time; while, if
they were taken away, not only would some part of our
rights be diminished, but also that violence, which is the
greatest enemy to law, would seem to be strengthened by
that decision, — I see that the cause is one requiring the greatest
abilities, not in order to demonstrate what is before men's
eyes, but to prevent (if any mistake is made by you in so im-
portant a matter) every one from thinking that I have been
wanting to the cause, rather than that you have to your
religious obligations.
Although I am persuaded, 0 judges, that you have not
now doubted about the same cause twice, on accoimt of thB
obscure and imcertain state of the law, so much as because
this trial appears to affect that man's personal character; and
on that accoimt you have delayed condemning him, and have
also given him time to recollect himsel£ And since that
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38 OIOEBO's ORATIONS.
custom has now become a usual one, and since good men, —
men like yourselves,— do the same when sitting as judges, it
is, perhaps, less blameable. But still it appears a thing to be
complained of, because all judicial proceedings have been
devised either for the sake of putting an end to disputes, or
of punishing crimes, of which the first is the least important
object, because it is less severe on individuals, and because it is
often terminated by some friendly mediator. The other is most
formidable, because it relates to more important matters, and
requires not the honorary assistance of some friend, but the
severity and vigour of a judge. That which was the more
important, and on account of which judicial proceedings were
most especially instituted, has been long abolished by evil
customs. For the more disgraceful a thing is, the more
severely and the more promptly ought it to be punished ; and
yet those things which involve danger to a man's character
are the slowest to be punished.
III. How, then, can it be right, that the same cause which
prompted the institution of legal proceedings, should also
cause the delay that exists in coming to a decision 1 If any
one, when he has given security, — when he has bound himself
by one word, does not do what he has rendered himself liable
to do, then he is condemned by the natural course of justice
without any appeal to the severity of the judge. If a man,
as a guardian, or as a partner, or as a person in a place
of trust, or as any one's agent, has cheated any one, the
greater his offence is, the slower is his punishment. "Yes,
for the sentence is a sentence of infamy." " Ay, if it arise
from an in&mous action." See, then, how iniquitously it
happens, that because an action is infamous, therefore a
discreditable reputation should attach to it, but that a scan-
dalous action is not to be punished, because, if it were, it
would involve a loss of reputation. It is just as if any judex
or recuperator were to say to me, " Why, you might have
tried it in an Inferior court, — you might have obtained your
rights by an easier and more convenient process ; therefore,
either change your form of action, or else do not press me to
give my decision." And yet he would appear more timid
than a bold judge ought to appear, or more covetous than it
is right for a wise judge to be, if he were either to prescribe
to me how I should follow up my own rights^ or if he were to
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FOR A. CiEOINA. S9
be afraid himself to give liis decision in a matter which was
brought before him. In truth, if the praetor, who allows the
laialfl to proceed, never prescribes to a claimant what form
of action he widies him to adopt, consider how scandalous
a thing it must be, when the matter is so far settled, for
a judge to afik what might have been done, or what can
be done now, and not what has been done. However, in this
case we should be complying too much with your good
nature if we were willing to recover our rights by any process
di£ferent from that which we are adopting. For now, what
man is there who thinks that violence offered by armed men
ought to be passed over ; or who can show us a more mode-
rate way of proceeding in so atrocious a case 1 In the case
of offences of such a nature, that, as they keep crying out,
criminal trials and capital trials have been established on
th&i accoimt, can you find fault with our severity when you
see that we have done nothing more than claim possession of
our property by virtue of the praetor's interdict ?
IV. But whether you have as yet had your reputation
endangered, or whether the doubts about the law have hitherto
made the judges slow in giving their decision ; the former
reason you yourselves have already removed, by the frequent
adjournments of the trial ; the other I will myself this day
take away, that you may not hesitate any longer about om-
disputing about the common law. And if I shall appear
to go rather further back in tracing the origin of the business
than either the state of the law which is involved in this
trial, or the nature of the case c6mpels me to, I beseech you
to pardon me ; for Aulus Csecina is not less anxious to appear
to have acted according to the strictest law, than he is to ob-
tain what by strict law is his due.
There was a man named Marcus Fulcinius, 0 judges, of the
mimicipality of Tarquinii, who, in his own city, was reckoned
one of the most honourable men, and also had a splendid
business at Rome as a banker. He was married to Csesennia^
a woman of the same mimicipality, a woman of the highest
rank and most unimpeachable character, as he both showed
while he was alive by many circumstances, and declared also
by his will at his death. To this Csesennia he had sold a farm
in the district of Tarquinii, at a time of great commercial
embarrassment; for as he was employing the dowry of his
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40 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.*
wife, which he had received in ready money, he took care, in
order that she, being a woman, might liave abundant security,
to charge her dowry on that farm. Some time afterwards,
having given up his banking business, Fulcinius buys some
lands which are contiguous, and adjacent to this &rm of his
wife's. Fulcinius dies ; (for I will pass over many circum-
stances of the case, because they are unconnected with the
subject of this action ;) in his will he makes his son, whom he
had by Csesennia^ his heir ; he bequeaths Csesennia a life-
interest in all his property, which she is to enjoy with his
son. The great honour paid her by her husband would have
been very agreeable to the woman, if she had been allowed to
enjoy it long ; for she would have been enjoying her property
in common with him whom she wished to be the heir of her
property, and from whom she herself was receiving the
greatest enjoyment of which she was capable. But of this
enjoyment she was prematurely deprived by the act of God ;
for in a short time the young man, Marcus Fulcinius, died ;
he left Publios Ceesennius his heir; he bequeathed to his wife
an immense sum of money, and to his mother the greater
part of his landed property; and, accordingly, the women
divided the inheritance.
V. When the auction of the inheritance was appointed
to take place, -^butius, who had long been supported by
Ceesennia though a widowed and solitary woman, and who
had insinuated himself into her confidence by the system
of undertaking (not without some profit to himself) dl the
business which the woman had to transact, and all her dis-
putes— was employed at that time also in this transaction of
selling and dividing the property. And he always pushed
and thrust himself in in such a way as to make Caesennia of
opinion, that she, being a woman unskilled in business, could
not get on well in any matter in which ^butius was not con-
cerned. The character that you know, from daily experience,
O judges, belongs to a flatterer of women, an agent of
widows, an over-litigious defender, eager for strife, ignorant
and stupid among men, but a shrewd and clever lawyer-
among women ; this was the character of JEbutius. For all
this was -^butius to Ceesennia. In case you should ask. Was
he any relation 1 no one could be more entirely unconnected
with her — ^Was he a friend, recommended to her by her
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FOR A. CiBCINA. 41
father or her husband? Nothing of the sort. Who then
was he ? He was such a man as I have just been depicting —
a Toluntary friend of the woman, united with her, not by any
relationship, but by a pretended officiousness, and a deceitful
eagerness in her behalf; by an occasional assistance, seasonable
rather than faithful. When; as I had begun to say, the
auction was fixed to take place at Eome, the friends and rela-
tions of Csesennia advised her — as, indeed, had occurred to her
of her own accord, — that, since she had an opportunity of
buying that farm of Fulcinius's which was contiguous to her
own ancient property, there would be no wisdom in letting
such an opportunity slip, especially as money was owing to
her from the division of the inheritance, which could never
be invested better. Therefore the woman determines to do
so ; she gives a commission to buy the farm — to whom ? to
whom do you suppose ] Does it not at once occur to every
one that this was the natural business of the man who was
ready to transact all the woman's business, of the man
without whom nothing could be done with proper skill and
wisdom ] You are quite right— the business is entrusted
to JEbutius.
VI. iEbutius is present at the sale — ^he bids — many pur-
, chasers are deterred, some from goodwill to Csesennia, some
by the price — ^the form is knocked down to -^butius ; -^bu-
tius promises the money to the banker, which piece of
evidence that excellent man is using now to prove that the
purchase was made for himself As if we either denied that
it had been knocked down to him, or aa if there were at the
time any one who doubted that it had been bought for
CsBsennia, when most men actually knew, nearly all had
heard, and when even these judges might conjecture, that, as
money was due to Csesennia from that inheritance, it was
exceedingly advantageous for her that it should be invested in
forms ; and since those fisirms which were especially desirable
for the woman were being sold, and since he was bidding whom
no one wondered to see acting for Ceesennia, no one could
. possibly suspect was buying l£em for himself When this
purchase had been made, the money was paid by Csesennia ;
and of this that man thinks that no account can be produced,
because he himself has detained her account-books, and
because he has the account-books of the banker in which the
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42 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
money is entered as having been paid Jjy him, and credit is
given to him for it, as having been received from him ; as if
it could have been properly done in any other manner.
When everything had been settled in this way, as we are now
stating in this defence of ours, Csesennia took possession of
the farm and let it ; and not long afterwards she married
Aulus Csecina. To cut ^ the matter short,, the woman died,
having made a will. She makes Csecina her heir to the extent
of twenty-three twenty-fourths of her fortune ; of the re-
maining twenty-fourth she leaves two-thirds to Marcus Ful-
cinius, a freedman of her first husband, and one-third she leaves
to iEbutius. This seventy-second part of her property she
meant to be a reward to him for the interest he had taken
in her affairs, and for any trouble that they might have caused
him. But he thinks that he can make this small fraction a
handle for disputing the whole.^
VIT. In the first place he ventured to say that Csecina
coidd not be the heir of Csesennia, because he had not the
same rights as the rest of the citizens, on account of the dis-
asters and civil calamities of the Volaterrans. Did he, there-
fore, like a timid and ignorant man, who had neither courage
enough, nor wisdom enough, not think it worth while to
enter on a doubtful contest about his rights as a citizen 'i did
he yield to iEbutius, and allow him to retain as much as he
pleased of the property of Ceesennia ? No ; he, as became a
brave and wise man, put down and crushed the folly and
calimmy of his adversary. .As he was in possession of the
estate, and as -^butius was exaggerating his seventy-second
share unduly, Csecina, as heir, demanded an arbitrator, for
the purpose of dividing the inheritance. And in a few days,
when iEbutius saw that he could not pare anything off from
CfiBcina's property by the terror of a law-suit, he gives him
notice, in the forum at Eome, that that ferm which I have
already mentioned, and of which I have shown that he had
become the purchaser on Ceesennia's conmiission, was his own,
and that he had bought it for himsel£ What are you saying ?
you will say to me ;— -does that farm belong to ^butius which
Ceesennia had possession of without the least dispute for four
years, that is to say, ever since the farm was sold, as long as
she lived 1 Yes, for the life-interest in that farm, and its
produce, belonged to Ceesennia, by the will of her husband.
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FOR A. OiECINA. 45
Ab he was thus artfully planning this singular kind of action,
CfiDcina determined, by the advice of his friends, to fix a day
on which he would go to offer to take possession, and be
formally driven off the form. They confer on the subject; a
day is agreed on to suit the convenience of both parties ;
CfiBcina, with his friends, comes on the appointed day to the
castle of Axia, from which place the farm which is now in
question is not far distant. There he is informed by many
people that -^butius has collected and armed a great number
of men, both fi-ee-men and slaves. While some marvelled at
this, and some did not believe it, lo ! -^butius himself comes to
the castle. He gives notice to Caecina that he has armed .
men with him, and that, if he comes on the property, he^shall
never go away again. Caecina and his friends agreed that it
was best to try how fex they could proceed without personal
danger. Then th^ descend from the castle — ^they go to the
ferm. It seems to some to have been done rashly; but, as I
think, this was the reason, — no one supposed that -^butius
would really behave as rashly as he had threatened.
YIII. Accordingly iEbutius places armed men at every
entrance by which people could pass, not only to that farm
about which there was the dispute, but also to the next farm,
about which there was no dispute at all. And therefore, at
the first step, when he was about to enter on his ancient
farm, because from that one he could come very near to the
other, armed men in crowds opposed him. Csecina being
repulsed from that spot, still went as he could towards that
ferm, from which, according to their agreement, he was to be
formally ejected by force. A row of olive-trees in a straight
line marks the extreme boimdary of that farm. When they
came near them, ^Ebutius was there with all his forces, and
he summoned his slave, by name Antiochus, to him, and with
a loud voice ordered him to kill any one who entered within
that hne of oHves. Csecina, a most prudent man in my
opinion, appears nevertheless to have shown in this affair
more courage than wisdom. For though he saw that miilti-
tude of armed men, and though he had heard that expression
of iBbutius which I have mentioned, still he came nearer, and
was entering within the boundaries of that section which the
olive-trees marked out, when he was put to flight by the
assault of Antiochus in arms, and hf the darts and onset of
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44 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
the rest. At the same time his friends and assistants all take
to flight with him ; being greatly alarmed, as you heard one
of them state in his evidence. When these things had been
done in this manner, Publius Dolabella the preetor issued his
interdict, as is the custom, " concerning violence, and armed
men," ordering, without any exception, that he should restore
the property from which he had ejected Csecina. He said,
that he had restored it. Securities were entered into to stand
a trial. The cause is now before you for your decision.
IX. It was most especially desirable for Csecina, 0 judges,
to have no dispute at all ; and, in the next place, not to have
one with so wicked a man ; and, in the third place, if he had
a dispute at all, not to have it with so foolish a man as this.
For, in truth, his foUy assists us almost as much as his wicked-
ness injures us. He was wicked, inasmuch as he collected men,
armed them, and, with them collected and armed, committed
deeds of violence. In that he injured Csecina ; but by the
same conduct also he benefited him. For he took with him
evidence of the very deeds which he did so wickedly, and that
very evidence he brings forward in this case. Therefore I have
made up my mind, 0 judges, before I come to make my
defence, and to summon my own witnesses, to make use of
his confession and his witnesses. What is it that he con-
fesses, and confesses so willingly, that he seems not only to
admit it, but even to boast of it, 0 judges ] "I summoned
men ; I collected them ; I armed them ; I prevented you
from entering on the feirm by fear of death, by threatening
you with personal danger ; by the sword," says he, " by the
sword." (And he says this in open court.) " I drove you
away and routed you." What more ] What say the wit-
nesses ] Publius Vetilius, a relation of JEbutius, says that
he was with -^butius as his assistant, with several armed
slaves. What more does he say 1 — That there were many
armed men there. What more ] — ^That JSbutius threatened
Csecina. What shall I say of this witness, 0 judges, except
this, that you must not believe him the less because he does
not seem to be a thoroughly respectable man, but that you
must believe^ him, because his evidence goes to establish the
very facts that are most unfavourable to his cause 1 xiulus
Terentius, a second witness, convicts not only iEbutius, but
himself also. He says this against iBbutius, that there were
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FOB A. O^CINA. 45
armed men ; but concemiDg himself he makes this state-
ment, that he ordered Antiochus, the slave of jEbutius, to
attack Csecina with the sword if he came on the land. What
more shall I say of this man ? against whom, indeed, I did not
wish to say anything, though I was begged by Csecina to do
so, that I might not seem to accuse him of a capital crime;
but now T am in doubt how to speak of him, or how to
be silent about him; since he, on his oath, makes this state-
ment about himself. After them, Lucius Cselius not only
stated that JEbutius was there with a large force of armed
men, but also that Csecina had come thither with a very
limited train.
X. Shall I at all disparage this witness? I beg you to
believe him as much as you believe my witnesses. Publius
Memmius followed ; who mentioned his having done a great
kindness to the friends of Ceecina, in giving them a passage
through his brother's fiirm, by which they could escape, when
they were all in a state of great alarm and consternation. I
will here give my public thanks to this witness for having
shown himself xjaercifiil in his conduct, and conscientious in
giving his evidence. Aulus Atilius and his son Lucius Atilius
stated that there were armed men there, and that they also
brought their slaves armed. They said this also ; that when
^butius was threatening Csecina, Csecina then and there
required of him to let his ejection be accomplished in the
regular form. Publius Rutihus stated the same thing, and
he stated it the more willingly, in order to have credit
attached to his evidence in a court of justice. Besides these,
two more witnesses gave evidence^ saying nothing about the
violence, but speaking only of the original business and of the
purchase of the &rm. There was Publius Osesennius, the
seller of the fiurm, a man with a body of greater weight than
his character ; and Sextus Clodius, a banker, whose surname
is Phormio, a man no less black and no less presuming than
that Phormio in Terence ; neither of these said anything about
violence, nor about anything else which had any reference
to this trial But the tenth witness, the one who had been
reserved for the last, a senator of the Roman people, the pride
of his order, the flower and ornament of the courts of justice,
the model of ancient piety, Fidiculanius Falcula, gave his
evidence also. But though he came forward so eagerly and
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46 CIOBBO'S ORATIONS.
violently that he not only attacked Csecinawith his perjuries,
but seemed to be angry with me also, I made him so tran-
quil and gentle that he did not dare, as you recollect, to say
a second time even how many miles his fitrm was distant
from the city. For when he had said that it was fifty-three
miles^ off, the people cried out with a laugh, that that was
exactly the distance. For all men recollected how much
he had received on the trial of Albius. What shall I say
against him except that which he cannot deny? — that he came
on the bench during a criminal trial, though he was not
a member of that tribimal, and that, while sitting on that
bench, though he had not heard a word of the cause, and
though there was an opportunity of adjourning the decision,
he stiU gave his sentence, " that the case was proved ;" that
as he chose to decide without having inquired into the matter,
he preferred condemning to acquitting ; and that, inasmuch
as, if there had been one damnatory vote fewer, the defendant
could not have been condemned, he came forward, not so much
for the purpose of investigating the case, as of insuring a con-
viction. Can anything worse be said against any man, than
that he was induced by a bribe to condemn a man whom he had
never seen nor even heard of 1 Or, can any allegation be made
against a man on more certaiil grounds than one which even
he, against whom it is made, cannot attempt to invalidate, not
oven by signs ? However that witness, (in order that you
might easily understand that he was not present in mind
while their case was being stated by that party, and while
their witnesses were giving their evidence, but that he was
thinking of some criminal,) though every witness before
him had stated that there were many armed men with Mhn-
tius, said, (though he stood alone in his statement,) that there
were no armed men at all. At first, I thought that the cim-
ning fellow was well aware of what the cause was in need of,
and only made a mistake because he was contradicting all the
witnesses who had spoken before him ; when all of a sudden,
according to his usual custom, he forgets his previous state-
' Some think that the number of miles here ought to he forty. In the
trial of Cluentius, Cicero imputes to all the judges that they had been
bribed with forty thousand sesterces ; and of these judges Falcula was
one ; so that the laughter of the people must have been excited by a
similarity of number between the sesterces and the miles.
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FOB A. C-aOINA. 47
ment, and says that his slaves were the only armed men
there.
XI. What can you do with such a man as this? Must
you not grant to him sometimes to escape from the odium
due to his excessive wickedness by the excuse of his prodigious
stupidity] Did you not, 0 judges, believe these witnesses
when you considered the case not proved ? But there was no
question that they were speaking the truth. When there
was a mTiltitude collected together, and arms, and weapons,
and instant fear of death, and visible danger of murder, was
it doubtful to you whether there seemed to have been any
violence committed, or noti In what circumstances can
violence be possibly understood to exist, if it does not exist in
these 1 Or did that defence of his seem to you a very suffi-
cient one, " I did not drive you out, I opposed your entrance;
I did not suffer you to come on the farm at all, but I opposed
armed men to you, in order that you might imderstand that,
if you set your foot on the farm, you would immediately
perish V What do you say ? Does not the man who was
terrified and put to flight, and driven away by force of arms,
appear to have been turned out ? We will examine hereafter
into the appropriate expression ; at present let us prove the
fact, which they do not deny, and let us inquire into the law
of the case, and the proper method of proceeding by law
under such circumstances.
This fact is proved, which is not denied by the -opposite
party, — that Csecina, when he had come on the appointed
day, and at the appointed time, in order that a formal and
regular ejectment might take place, was driven away and
prevented from entering by open violence, by men collected
together in arms. As this is proved, I, a man unskilled in
law, ignorant of matters of business and of law-suits, think
that I can proceed in this way, that I can obtain my rights
and prosecute you for the injury I have sustained, by means
of the interdict which I have obtained. Suppose that I am
mistaken in this, and that I cannot possibly obtain what I
wish by means of this interdict. In this afl&ir T wish to take
you for my master. I ask whether there is any legal pro-
ceeding open to me in this case, or whether there is not. It
is not right for men to be summoned together on account of
a dispute about possession ; it is not right for a multitude to
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48 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
be armed for the sake of preserving a right ; nor is there any-
thing so contrary to law as violence ; nor is there anything
so irreconcilable with justice as men collected together and
armed.
XII. And as the law is such, and the circumstances of the
case such, that it appears above all others worthy of being
brought under the notice of the magistrates, I ask again
whether there is any legal proceeding open to me in this case,
or whether there is not Will you say that there is not ? I
wish to hear. Is a man, who in time of peace and tran-
quillity has collected a band, prepared his forces, got together
a great number of men, armed them, equipped them, — ^who has
repelled, put to flight and driven o^ by arms, and armed
men, and terror, and danger of death, unarmed men who had
come at a time agreed upon to go through an ordinary legal
form ; — ^is such a man to say, " Yes, indeed, I have done
eveiything which you say ; and my conduct was turbulent,
and rash, and hazardous. What then; I did it all with
impunity ; for you have no means of proceeding against me
by civil action before the prsetor?" Is it so, 0 judges?
Will you listen to this 1 and will you permit such a tiling to
be said before you more than once 1 When our ancestors
were men of such diligence and prudence as to establish
every requisite law, not only for such important cases as this,
but for even the most trivial matters, and to prosecute all
offences against them, will you allow that they overlooked
this class of cases, the most important of all; so that, if
people had compelled me to depart from my home by force of
arms, I should have had a right of action, but as they only
prevented me from entering my home, I have none 1 1 am
not yet arguing the particular case of Ceecina, I am not yet
speaking of our own particular right of possession. I am
resting my complaint wholly on your defence, 0 Caius Piso.
Since you make this statement, and lay down this principle,
" that, if Caecina, when he was actually in his farm, had been
driven from it, then it would have been right for him to be
restored by means of this interdict ; but now he can by no
means be said to have been from a place where he has not
been ; and, therefore, we have gained nothing by this inter-
dict ;" I ask you, i^ this day, when you are returning home,
mep collected in a body, and armed, not only prevent you
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FOB A. C^CINA. 49
from crossing the threshhold and from coming imder the roof
of your own house, but keep you off from approaching it —
from even entering the court yard, — ^what will you do 1 My
friend Lucius Calpumius reminds you to say the same thing
that he said before, namely that you would bring an action
for the injury. But what has this to do with possession )
What has this to do with restoring a man who ought to be
restored 1 or with the civil law ] ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I will grant you even more. I will allow you not only to
bring your action, but also to succeed in it. Will you be any
the more in possession of your property for that! For an
action for injury done does not carry wi^ it, even if success-
frd, any right of possession ; but merely makes up to a man
for the loss he sustains through the diminution of his liberty,
by the trial and penalty imposed upon the offender.
XIII. In the mean time, shall the prsetor, 0 Piso, be silent
in so important a matter ? ShaU he have no power to restore
you to the possession of your own house 1 He who is occu-
pied for whole days in repressing deeds of violence, and in
ordering the restitution of what has been obtained by such
deeds ; he who issues interdicts about ditches, about sewers,
in the most trifling disputes about water or roads, shall he qn
a sudden be struck dumb 1 Shall he in a most atrocious case
have nothing which he can do ] And when Caius Piso is
prevented from entering his own house, from coming under
his own roo^ — prevented, I say, by men collected in a body
and armed, — shaQ the praetor have no power of assisting him
according to established regulations and precedents? For
what wiU he sayl or what wiU you demand after having
sustained such a notable injury? No one ever issued an
interdict in the terms, "whether you were prevented by
violence from coming." That is a new form ; I will not say
an imusual one, but a form absolutely unheard of ^' Whence
you were driven." What will you gain by this, when they
make you the same answer that they now make me ; that ,
armed men opposed you and prevented you from entering
your house ; moreover, that a man cannot possibly be driven
out of a place, who has not entered into it ? I am driven out,
say yo^ if aiiy one of my slaves is driven out. Now you are
right, for you are altering your language, and appealing te
justice. For if we choose to adhere te the words themselves,
VOL. II. B
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50 CICKEO'S ORATIONS.
how are you driven out when your servant is drive^^ out?
But it is as you say — I ought to consider you yovi olf as
driven out, even if you were never touched. Is it not so 1
Come now, suppose not even one of your slaves was driven
from his place, if they were all kept and retained in the
house; if you alone were prevented from entering, and
frightened away from your house by violence and arms ; will
you in that case have this right of action which we have
adopted, or some other form, or will you have no action at
all 1 It neither becomes your prudence nor your character to
say that, \a so notable and so atrocious a case, there is no
right of action. If there be any other kind of action which
has escaped our notice, teU us what it is. I wish to learn.
If this be the proper form, which we have employed, then, if
you are the judge, we must gain our cause. For I have no
fear of your saying in the same cause, and with the same
interdict, that you ought to be restored, but that Csecina
ought not. In truth, who is there to whom it is not clear,
that the property, and possessions, and fortunes of all men
wiU be again brought back into a state of uncertainty if the
effect of this interdict is made in any particular more obscure,
or less vigorous? if, imder the authority of such men as
these judges, the violence of armed men should appear to be
approved by a judicial decision ? in a trial in which it can be
said that there was no question at issue about arms, but that
inquiry was only made into the language of the interdict.
Shall that man gain his cause before your tribunal, who
defends himself in this manner, " 1 drove you away with
armed men, I did not drive you out ;" so that the fexst is not
to depend on the equity of the defence, but on the correctness
of a single expression ? Will you lay it down that there is no
right of action in such a case as this ? that there is no method
estabhshed for inquiring who has opposed a person with
armed men, who has collected a multitude, and so prevented
a man not only from effecting an entrance, but even from all
access to a property ?
XIV. What, then, shall we say ? What force is there in
this, or what difference is there between the cases 1 — whether,
when I have got my foot within the boundaries, and taken
possession as it were by planting a footstep on the ground, I
am then expelled and driven out ; or whether I am met with
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FOR A. O^CINA. 51
the same yiolence, and the same weapons, not only before I
can enter on the land,- but before I can see it, or breathe i.s
atmosphere ? What is the difference between one case and the
other i Can there be such a difference, that he, who has ex-
pelled a man who has once entered, can be compelled to make
restitution, but that he who has driven a person back when
seeking to enter, cannot be compelled f See, I entreat yon
in the name of the immortal gods, what a law you are pro<
ceeding to establish for us, — ^what a condition for yourselves,
jmd what a code for the whole state. In injuries of this kind
there is one form of proceeding established, the one which we
have- adopted, that by interdict If that is of no avail, or has
no reference to this matter, what can be imagined more care-
less or more stupid than our ancestors, who either omitted to
institute any form of proceeding in so atrocious a business, or
else did institute one which fails to embrace in proper lan-
guage either the fact, or the principle of law applicable to the
case. It is a dangerous thing for this interact to be dis-
solved. It is a perilous thing for all men, that there should
be any case of such a nature that, when deeds of violence
have been committed in it, the injustice should not be able to
be repaired by law. But this is the most disgraceful thing
of all, that most prudent men should be convicted of such
egregious folly, as they would be if you were to decide
that such a case as this, and such a form of legal proceed-
ing as is requisite, never once occurred to the minds of our
ancestors.
We may complain then, he says. Still -^butius is not
touched by this interdict. How so ? Because violence was
not offered to Csecina. Can it be said in this cause, where
there were arms, where there was a multitude of men col-
lected, where there were men carefully equipped and placed
in appointed places with swords, where there were threats,
dangers, and terrors of death, that there was no violence 1
" No one,'* says he, " was slain, or even wounded.*' What
are you saying ? When we are speaking of a dispute about a
right of possession, and about an action at law between pri-
vate individuals, will you say that no violence was done, if
actual murder and slaughter did not take place ? I say that
mighty armies have often been put to flight and routed by
the mere terror and charge of the enemy, not only without
e2
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62 CICERO S ORATIONS.
the death of any one, but even i;?ithout one single person
being wounded.
XV. In truth, 0 judges, that is not the only violence which
reaches our persons and our lives, but that is even a much
greater one, which, by threatening us with the danger of
death, often drives our minds, agitated by fear as they are,
from their steady position and condition. Therefore, wounded
men often, when they are enfeebled in body, still do not suc-
cumb as to their courage, and do not leave the place which
they have determined to defend; but others, though un-
woimded, are driven away : so that there is no doubt but that
the violence which is done to a man whose mind is frightened,
is much greater than that which is done to him whose body is
wounded. And if we say that those armies have been routed
by force, which have fled through fear, and often from only
some slight suspicion of danger ; and if we have both seen
and heard of troops being put to flight, not only by the dash
of shield against shield, nor by bodily conflict, nor by blows
interchanged hand to hand, nor by the showering of missile
weapons from a distance, but often by the mere E^iout of the
soldiers, by their warlike array, and the sight of the hostile
standards ; shall that, which is called violence in war, not
be called violence in peace ? And shall that which is thought
vigorous conduct in military aflairs, be considered gentle in
transactions of civil law 1 And shall that which has its influ-
ence Cji armed battalions, not appear to move a body of men
in the garb of peace ] And shall a woimd of the body be a
greater proof of that violence which we complain o^ than
alarm of mind 1 And shall we inquire strictly what wounds
were inflicted, when it is notorious that people were put to the
rout 1 For your own witness stated this, that when our party
were flying through fear, he had pointed them out the way by
which they might escape. Does no violence appear to have
been ofifered to men who not only fled, but who even asked of
a stranger which way they could flee with safety 1 Why, then,
did they flee ? Out of fear. What did they fear 1 Violence,
of course. Can you then deny the first facts when you admit
the last? You confess, that they fled because they were
frightened ; you say the cause of their flight was that which
we all understand, — ^namely, arms, a multitude of men, an
attack and onset of armed men. Wlien all this is admitted to
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FOR A. CiECINA. 53
have taken place, shall violence be denied to have been
offered 1
XVI. But all this is common enough, and there is plenty
of precedent for it in transactions of our ancestors' time j
that, when people came to assert their rights bj force, if either
party beheld armed men ever so far off, they should at once
depart, having called on their companions to bear witness to
the fsuot ; and then they had a right to proceed to trial, and to
require the securities to be given according to the following
formula : — " If no violence had been offered contrary to the
edict of the praetor." Is it so 1 Is it enough for proving
violence to have been offered, to know that there are armed
men ; but not enough for proof, to fall into their hands ?
Shall the aght of armed men avail to prove violence, and shall
their onset and attack not avail ? Shall a man who departs
quietly find it more easy to prove that violence has been
offered to him, than a man who has fled from it 1 But I say
this. If, when first iEbutius told Csecina, when in the castle,
that he had collected men and armed them, and that, if he
came thither, he would never go away again, Caecina had at
once'departed, you ought not to have doubted whether vio-
lence had been offered to Caecina. But if, as soon as he had
beheld the armed men, he had then departed, you would have
doubted still less. For everything is violence, which, by means
of danger, either compels us to depart from any place, or
prevents our approaching any place. But if you determine
otherwise, take care lest what you determine amoimts to this,
that no violence has been offered to a man who goes away
alive, — ^take care lest you prescribe this to all men, in all dis-
putes about possession, to think that they have a right to do
battle, and to engage in actual combat, lest, just as in battle
punishments are appointed for cowards by the generals, so, in
courts of justice, the cause of those men who have fled may
have a worse appearance than that of those men who have
striven on to the last. As we are speaking of law, and of
legal disputes between men, when in these matters we speak
of violence, a very little violence must be considered enough,
I have seen armed men — ^as few as you please — ^that is great
violence. I departed, being alarmed at the weapon of one
individual ; I was driven away and put to flight. If you
establish this rule, there will not only be no instance here-
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54 CICEROS ORATIONS.
after of any one wishing to have a battle for the sake of
possession, but there will be no instance even of any one
resisting. But if you refiise to think anytljdng violence where
there has been no slaughter, no wounding, no bloodshed, then
it will follow that men ought to be more anxious about esta-
blishing their ownership, than about saving their lives.
XVII. Come now, in the matter of violence I wiU make
you yourself the judge, 0 JEbutius. Answer, if you please.
Was Csecina unwilling to come on his farm, or was he unable?
As you say that you opposed and repelled him, surely you
will admit that he wished to do so. Can you then say that
it was not violence which hindered him, when, by reason of
armed men, he was unable to come to a place, when he wished
to come there, and had gone out with that intention 1 For, if
he was by no means able to do what he was exceedingly desirous
to do, beyond all question some violence or other hindered
him, or else tell me why, when he wished to come on ihe land,
he did not come. Now, then, you cannot deny that violence
was offered. The question now is, how he was driven away
who was prevented from approaching. For a man who is
driven away must manifestly be removed and thrust down
from the place which he is occupying. And how can that
happen to a man who absolutely never was in the place at all
from which he says that he was driven ? What shdl we say ?
If he had been there, and if, under the influence of fear, he
had fled from the place when he saw the armed men, would
you then say that he had been driven away 1 I think so.
Will you then, who decide disputes with such care and such
subtlety, by expressions and not by equity, — ^you who interpret
laws, not by the common advantage of the citizen, but by
their letter, — ^will you be able to say that a man has been
driven away who has never been touched 1 What ! Will you
say that he has been thrust down fix)m his place 1 For that
was the word which the prsetors used formerly to use in their
interdicts. What do you say 1 Can any one be thiiist down
who is not touched ? Must we not, if we will stick to the
strict letter, understand that that man only is thrust down on
whom hands are kid ? It is quite inevitable, I say, if we wish
to make words and facts tally exactly with each other, that no
one should be decided to have been thrust down, imless he be
understood to have had hands laid on him, and so to have
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FOR A. CMCSNJl, 55
been removed and pushed headlong down by personal violence.
But how can any one have been treated so^ unless he has been
removed from a higher place to a lower one ? A man may
have been driven away, he may have been put to flight, he
may have been cast out ; but it is absolutely impossible for
any one to have been pushed down, not only who has never
been touched, but who, if he has been touched, has been
touched on even and level groxmd. What then ] Are we
to think that this interdict was framed for the sake of those
men alone, who could say that they had been precipitated
from high ground 1 for tiiose are the only people who can
properly be said to have been driven down,*
XYIII. Shall we not, when the intention, and design, and
meaning of the interdict is thoroughly imderstood, think it
the most excessive impudence, or the most extraordinary folly,
to haggle about a verbal mistake 1 and not only to pass over,
but even to desert and betray the real merits of the case, and
the common advantage of all the citizens ? Is this doubtful,
that there is not such an abundance of words, — I will not say
in our language, which is confessedly poor, but not in any
other language either, — ^as to enable every imaginable thing and
circupastance to be expressed by its own fixed and appropriate
name ? Is it doubtful that we have no need of words when
the matter, for the sake of which words were first invented,
is thoroughly understood ? What law, what resolution of the
senate, what edict of a magistrate, what treaty, or covenant,
(to return to m^s private afl&drs,) what will, what judicial
decision, what bond, what formula of bargain or agreement
cannot be invalidated and torn to pieces, if we choose to bend
&cts to words, and leave out of the question the intention,
and design, and authority of those who wrote themi In
truth, even our familiar and daily discourse will cease to have
any coherence, if we are to spend all our time in word catch-
ing. Lastly, there will be no such thing at all as any domestic
rule, if we grant this to our slaves, that they are to obey the
letter of our commands, and not attend to what may be
* The whole of this is quite untranslateable, bo aa to give in Bnglirii
the sense which the Latin bears. The truth is, that it is a sort of play
on the word dejidOj which is the Latin word used, and which not only
means to drive away, its technical and proper meaning here, but also to
throw down, which is the meaning which Cicero harps upon.
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66 OKmU)*S ORITIONB.
gathered from the spirit of our expressions. Must I produce
instances of all these things ? Do not different examples in
each separate class occur to every one of you, which may be
a proof that right does not depend only on the strict words
of the law, but that words are meant to be subservient to
the intentions and purposes of men ? In a most el^ant and
fluent manner did Lucius Crassus, by &r the most eloquent
of all men, a little before we came into the forum, defend this
opinion in a trial before the centumviri j' and with great ease,
too, though that very sagacious man, Quintus Mucins, was
arguing against him, did he prove to every one that Marcus
Curius, who had been left a certain person's heir in the case
of the death of a posthumous son who was expected, ought to
be the heir, though the son was not dead, never, in fact, having
been bom. Whati was this case sufficiently provided for by
the terms of the will 1 Certainly not. What was the thing,
then, that influenced the judges? The intention; and if it
could be imderstood though we were silent, we should not
employ words at all : because it could not, words have been
invented, not to hinder people's intentions, but to point
them out
XIX. The law commands the property in land to be de-
termined by two years' possession. But we adopt the same
principle also in the case of houses, which are not mentioned
at all in the law. If a road is not properly made, the law
allows a man to drive a beast of biurden wherever he likes.
Can it be imderstood from this, that if a road in the Bruttii
be out of repair, a man may, if he pleases, drive his b^ast
through the Tusculan ferm of Marcus Scaurus? There is a
right of action against a vendor who is present, according to
this formula, " Since I behold you before the court." . . . Now
the blind Appius could never have availed himself of this
^ The orig^ constitation, and powers of the centmnyiri are exceed-
ingly obscure; they were judges, but they differed from other judges in
being a definite body or colle^um. According to Festus three centum-
Tiri were chosen out of each tribe, so that their actual number must have
been a hundred and fire. Their powers were probably limited to Rome,
and at all events to Italy. It appears that they had cognisance of both
civil and criminal matters. It was the practice to set up a spear in the
place where the oentumviri were sitting, and accordingly the word haeta
or ?ui8ta centunmralis, is sometimes used as equivsJent to judicium
cerUumvirale, - Vide Smithy Diet. Ant. p. 232, v. Centumviri,
51
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FOR A. CAOINA. 57
form of action, if men adhered to words with such strictness,
as not to consider the matter for the sake of which the words
are used. If a person's heir had been stated in his will to be
the minor Cornelius, and if Cornelius were twenty years old,
according to your interpretation he would lose his inheritance.
Many such cases occur to me at present, and still more to you,
I am quite sure. But not to dwell on too many such points,
and not to wander too fer from where we set out, let us con-
sider this very interdict which is now before the court; for by
that very document you will understand, that if we deter-
mine that the law depends on its precise words, we shall lose
all the advantage of this interdict, while we wish to be very
acute and clever. " Whence you, or your household, or your
agent . . ." Suppose your steward by himself had driven me
away, your household would not, as I suppose, have driven
me away, but only a member of your household. Would you
then have a right to say that you had made the necessary
restitution? No doubt; for what can be more easy than to
prove to all those who understood the Latin language, that
the name of a household does not apply to one single slave ?
But suppose you have not. even one slave besides the one who
drove me away; then you would cry out, " If I have a house-
hold, I will admit that you were driven away by my house-
hold." Nor is there any doubt, that, if we are influenced in
our decisions by the mere letter of the law, and not by the
facts, we must understand a household to consist of many
slaves, and we must admit that one slave is not a household.
The expression certainly does not only require this, but even
compels it. But let til consideration of law, and the effect of
the interdict, and the intention of the praetor, and the wisdom
and authority of prudent men, reject this defence and treat it
as worthless.
XX. What, then, are we to think ? Cannot those men speak
Latin ? Yes, they speak it sufficiently to make -^ir inten-
tions xmderstood. As their object was that you /should re-
place me in my property, whether it was you yQurself who
drove me away, or any one of your relations, or of your ser-
vants, or of your friends, they did not specify the number of
servants, but classed them all \mder one name a^ your house-
hold. But if it were any one of your childr^ who did it,
he is called your agent; not that every one is, or is called our
agent, who is employed in the transaction of some of our hjm*
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58 CIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
ness, but because in this matter, where the intention of the
interdict was clearly ascertained, they did not think it worth
while to examine too curiously into the exact applicability of
every word. For the principles of equity are not different in
the case of one servant from what they are in the case of
many; there is no different law for this single case, according
to whether it was your agent who drove me away, — such a man
as is legitimately considered the agent of one who is not in
Italy, who is absent on business of the state, being for the
time a sort of master, that is, a deputy possessing the rights
of another, or whether it was one of your labourers, or neigh-
bours, or clients, or freedmen, — or any one else who committed
that violence and wrought that expulsion at your request, or
in your name. Wherefore, if the same principles of law pre-
vail with respect to replacing a man in his property who has
been driven from it by violence, when that is once understood,
it certainly has nothing to do with the matter, what is the exact
force of each word and name. You must replace me just as
much if your freedman drove me away, though he was not
appointed to manage any of your business, as if your%agent
did it; not that every one is an agent who transacts any of
our business, but because it is of no importance to the matter
to inquire into that point. You must replace me just as
much if one slave of yours drove me away, as if your whole
household did it; not that one slave is the same as a house-
hold, but because the question is, what action has been done,
not, in what language every point is expressed. Even (to
depart still ftirther from the exact wording of the law, though
there is not the least atom of departure from equity,) if it
was no slave of yours at aU who did it, but if they were all
strangers or hired people, still they will be comprehended
imder the description and name of your household.
XXI. Continue, now, to follow up the examination of this
interdict. "With men collected together." Suppose you
collected none, but they all came together of their own
accord. Certainly he does collect men together who assem-
bles men and invites them. Those men are collected who
are brought together by any one into one place ; if they not
only were never invited, but if they did not even assemble
on purpose at all ; if there was no one there who was not
there previously, not for the purpose of committii% violence,
but because they were used to be there for the sake of tilling
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FOR A. CMCINA, 59
the ground or tending the flocks. You will urge in your
defence that men were not collected j and, as &r as mere
words go, you will gain your cause, even if I myself am the
judge ; but as to fitcts, you will have no ground to stand on
before any judge whatever. For the intention of our legis-
lators was, that restitution should be made in cases where
violence had been committed by a multitude, and not by
a multitude only if expressly collected for the purpose ; but
because generally, if there is need of a multitude, men axe
used to be collected, therefore, the interdict has been framed
so as expressly to mention men when collected. And even if
there does seem to be any verbal difference, the feet is the
same, and the same rule will apply in all cases in which the
principle of justice is seen to be one and the same. " Or
armed." What shall we say 1 Whom, if we wish to speak
good Latin, can we properly call armed ? Those, I imagine,
who are prepared and equipped with shields and swords.
What then 1 Suppose you drive any one headlong from his
farm with clods of earth, and stones, and sticks ; and if you
are ordered to replace a man whom you have driven away
with armed men, will you say that you have complied with
the terms of the interdict ? If words are to govern every-
thing,— if causes are to be settled not by reason but by
accidental expressions, then you may say that you have done
so, and I will agree. You will establish the point, no doubt,
that those were not armed men who only threw stones which
they took up from the ground; that lumps of turf and clods
of earth were not arms ; that those men were not armed, who,
as they passed by, had broken off a bough of a tree ; that
arms have their appropriate classification, some for defending,
others for wounding ; and all who have not those arms, you
will prove to have been unarmed. Ay, and when there is a
trial about arms, then urge all these arguments ; but when
there is a trial about law and justice, do not take shelter in
such tame and meagre evasions. For you will not find any
judge or recuperator who will decide on a man's being armed
as if it were his duty to inspect the arms of a trooper ; but
it will have just the same weight in his mind as if l5iey were
most completely armed, if they are found to have been
equipped in such a manner as to be able to do violence to
life or limb.
XXII. And, that you may more clearly understand of how
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60 aOSBO's ORATIONS.
small Talue words are, — ^if you by yourself, or if any one
person had made an onset on me with shield and sword, and
I had been driven away by these means, would you venture
to say that the interdict spoke of armed men, but that in this
case there had only been one armed man 1 I do not believe
you would be so impudent. And yet see if you are not fer
more impudent now. For then, indeed, you might implore
the assistance of all men, because men, in deciding on your
case, were forgetting the native language ; because unarmed
men were being decided to be armed ; because though an
interdict had been framed expressly about many men, the
deed had been done by one man only — one man was being
decided to be many men. But in causes like this words are
not brought before the court, but that feet on account of
which these words have been introduced into the interdict.
Our legislators intended that restitution should be made,
without exception, in every case in which violence had been
offered, threatening life or limb. That generally takes place
by the agency of men collected together and armed ; but
though the operation be different, still, if the danger is the
same, the case is the same ; and IJien they intended that the
law diould be the same. For the injury is not greater if in-
flicted by your household than if inflicted by your steward ; nor
if it was your own slaves who wrought it, is it greater than
if the slaves of others, or people hired on purpose, had done
so. It is no worse if your agsnt did it, than if your neigh-
bour or your freedman was the person ; nor if it was the work
of men collected together on purpose, than if it was the deed
of men who offered themselves volimtarily, or of your regu-
lar day-labourers. It is not a more serious injury if inflicted
by armed men, than by unarmed men who had as much
power to injure as if they had been armed ; nor if it were
caused by many, than if it were the work of one single
armed man. For the hjcta are in an interdict expressed by
the circumstances xmder which violence usually takes place.
If the same violence has been committed xmder other circimi-
stances, although it may not be comprehended in the strict
language of the interdict, it still comes under the meaning
and intention, and authority of the law.
XXIII. I now come to that aigument of yours, " I did
not drive him away, if I never allowed him to approach." I
think that you yourself 0 Piso, perceive how much na;rrower
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POB A. OMOVSA. 61
and how much more imreasonable that dq^nce is, than if you
were even to employ that other one, "They were not armed, —
they had only bludgeons and stones." I^ in truth, the
option were given to me, who do not profess to be a very
fluent speaker, which argument I would prefer advancing in
defence, either that a man had not been dnven away who had
been met on his entrance with violence and arms, or, that
those men were not armed, who had neither .swords nor
shields; as fer as proving my case goes, I should consider
both the positions equally trifling and worthless ; but as for
making a speech ab^out them, I think that I might find somo
arguments to make it appear that those men were not armed
who had no shield nor any description of iron weapon; but I
should be wholly at a loss if I had to maintain that a man
who had been repulsed and put to flight had not been driven
away. And in the whole of your defence, that appeared
to me the most marvellous thing, that you. said there was
no necessity for being guided by the authority of lawyers.
And although this is not the first time that, nor this the only
cause in which, I have heard it, still, I did wonder exceedingly
why it was said by you. For other men have recourse to thw
sort of exhortation when tiiey think they hme in their case
some reasonable and good point which they are defending. If
people are arguing against them relying on the letter and
exact words, and (as people say) on the strict law, they are
in the habit of opposing to injustice of that sort the name
and dignity of virtue and justice. Then they laugh at that
expression, — "if, or if not" Then they seek to bring alL
word-catching, all traps and snares made up of the strict
letter of the law, into odium. Then they say loudly that the
case ought to be decided by considerations of what is honest
and just, and not of cunning and trickey law; that to adhere
to the mere text is the part of a false accuser, but that it is
the duty of a good judge to uphold the intention and autho-
rity of him who framed the law. But in this cause, when you
are defending yourself by the wording and letter of the law, —
when this is your argument, " Where were you driven froni ?
Do you mean to say that you were driven from a place whicn
you were prevented from approaching ] You were kept ofl^,
not driven away ;" — ^when this is what you say, "I confess
that I collected men, — I confess that I armed them, — I confess
that I threatened you with death, — I confess that this conduct
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62 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
is punidiable by the prsBtor's interdict, if his intention and
if equity is to prevail ; but I find in the interdict one word
tinder which I can shelter myself. I did not drive you fi:om
that place when I only prevented you from coming to it."
XXIV. Are you, in making this defence, accusing those
who are sitting on the bench, because they think it right
. to regard justice rather than the letter of the law ? And,
while speaking on this point, you said that Sceevola had not
succeeded in his case before the centumviri, whom I men-
tioned before on the occasion of his doing ihe same thing
which you are doing now, (though he had some reason for
what he was doing, while you have none,) still he did not
succeed in any one's opinion in proving the point that he
was maintaining, because he appeared by his language to
be opposing justice. I marvel tiat you should have made
this statement in- this case, at an imfavourable time, and
having an efiect exactly contrary to what your cause required;
and it also appears strange to me that a statement should
often be advanced in courts of justice, and should be some-
times even defended by able men, that one ought not to be
always guided by lawyers, and that the civil law ought
not always to prevail in the decision of causes. For those
who argue in this way, if they mean that those who sit
on the bench have given some wrong decisions, should not
say that we ought not to be guided by the civil law, but
by stupid men. If they admit that the lawyers give proper
answers, and still say that different decisions ought to be
given, that is saying tiiat wrong decisions ought to be given ;
for it is quite impossible that a decision of the judge on
a point of law shoiild be correct when given one way, and an
answer of a counsel should be right too when given the other
way. It is quite clear that no one has any right to be
accounted learned in the law, who decides that an incorrect
decision is conformable to law. But sometimes contrary
decisions have been given. In the first place, have they
been given rightly, or wrongly 1 If they were given rightly,
tiiat was the law which was decided to be so. K they were
wrong, then it cannot be doubtftd which are to be blamed,
the judges or the lawyers. Besides, if any decision has been
given on a disputed point, they are not deciding against the
opinion of the lawyers, if they give sentence contrary to the
decision of Mucins, any more than they would be deciding in
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FOR A. CiBCINA. 6S
compliance with their authority, if sentence were given ac-
cording to the precedent of Manilius. Forsooth, Ciassu»
himself did not plead his cause before the centumyiri in such
a way as to speak against the lawyers ; but he urged that the
arguments which Scsevola brought forward in his defence
were not law; and he not only brought forward good argu-
ments to that point, but he also quoted Quintus Mucins,
liis father-in-law, and many other most learned men, aa
precedents.
XXV. For he who thinks th^ civil law is to be despised,
he is tearing asunder the bonds, not only of all courts of
justice, but of all usefiilness and of our common life ; but he
who finds fault with the interpreters of the law, if he says
that they are ignorant of the law, is only disparaging the
men, and not the civil law itself. If he thinks we ought not
to be guided by learned men, then he is not injuring the men,
but he is undermining the laws and justice. So that you
must feel that nothing is to be maintained in a state with
such care as the civil law. In truth, if this is taken away, *
there is no possibility of any one feeling certain what is has
own property or what belongs to another ; there is nothing
which can be equal to all men, or is tiie same in every case.
Therefore in other disputes and trials, when the question at
issue is, whether a thing has been done or not, whether what
is alleged be true or &lse; and when false witnesses are
sometimes suborned, and false documents foisted in ; it is
possible that sometimes a virtuous judge may be led into
error by a seemingly honourable and probable pretence ; or
that an opportunity may be given to a dishonest judge, of
appearing to be guided by the witnesses, or by the documents
produced, though in reality he has knowingly given a wrong
decision. For questions of law there is nothing of this sort,
0 judges : there are no forged docimaents, no dishonest wit-
nesses ; even that overgrown power, which has sway in this
state, is dormant with respect to cases of this sort ; it has no
means of attacking the judge, or of moving a finger. For
this can be said to a judge by some man who is not so scru-
pulous as he is influential ; " Decide, I pray you, that this
has been done or planned ; give credit to this witness ; esta-
blish the genuineness of these documents ;" — but this cannot
be said, " Decide that if a man has a posthumous son bom to
him, his will is not thereby invalidated ; decide that a thing
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64 OIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
is due whicH a woman has promised without the sanction of
her trustee." There is no opening for transactions of this
sort, nor for any one's power or influence ; in feet, — ^and this
gives questions of law a more important and a more holy-
character, — a judge cannot be corrupted even by a bribe in
cases of this sort. That very witness of yoiuB who dared to
say " that he had been seen to do . . . ." in a case where
he coidd by no possibility know even of what the man waa
accused — even he would not venture to decide that a dowry
was due to a husband which the woman had promised with-
out the consent of her trustee. Oh admirable principle, and
worthy of being maintained by you on this account, 0
judges !
XXVI. For, indeed, what is the civil law ? A thing which
can neither be bent by influence, nor broken down by power,
nor adulterated by corruption ; which, if it be, I will not say
overwhelmed, but even neglected or carelessly upheld, there
will then be no ground for any one feeling sure either that he
possesses anything, or that he shall leave anything to his chil-
dren. For what is the advantage of having a house or a
form left one by one's father, or in any way legitimately ac-
quired, if it be uncertain whether you will be able to retain
tiiose things which are yours by every right of property ? if
law be but little fortified 1 if nothing can be upheld by public
and civil law, in opposition to the influence of any powerful
man? What is the advantage, I say, of having a mrm, if all
the laws which have been most properly laid down by our
ancestors about boundaries, about possession, and water, and
roads, may all be disturbed and changed in any manner?
Believe me, every one of you has received a greater inherit-
ance in respect of his property, fi:om justice and from the
laws, than from those from whom he received the property
itself. For it can happen, in consequence of anybody's will,
that a form may come tome ; but it cannot be ensured to me,
except by the civil law, that I shall be able to retiBn what has
become my own. A farm can be left me by my father, but
the enjoyment of the ferm — ^that is to say, freedom from all
anxiety and danger of law-suits — is not left to me by my
fether, but by the laws. Aqueducts, supply of water, roads,
a right of way, comefif from my father ; but the ratified pos-
session of all these things is derived from the civil law.
Wherefore you ought to maintain and preserve that public
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FOB A. CMQINA. 65
iiJieTitance of law whioh you have received from your ances-
tors with no less care than your private patrimony and pro-
perty, not only because this last is fenced round and protected
by the civil law, but also because if Na man loses his patrimony,
it is only an individual who suffers, but if the law be lost, the
disaster affects the whole state.
XXVII. In this very cause, 0 judges, if we do not succeed
in establishing this point, that a man is driven away, — ^if it is
evident that he has been repelled and put to flight with vio-
lence by armed men, — Csecina will not lose his property,
which, however, he would bear the loss of with a brave spirit,
if the occasion required it ; h^ will caily not be restored to the
possession of it immediately ; nothing more. But the cause
of the Roman people, the laws of the state, all the property,
fortune, and possessions of every one will again become uncer-
tain and doubtful. This will be established, this will be
settled by your authority j that, if you hereafter have a dis-
pute with any one about ownership, if you drive him away
when he has once entered on his property, you must inake
restitution ; but if, as he is coming to enter, you taeet him
with an armed multitude, and repel him, put him to flight,
and beat him off while still only on his road, then you shall
not make restitution. Then you will establish this principle
as law and justice, that violence can only exist where there is
murder, that it has nothing to do with the intention or the
will ; that, imless blood be spilt, there has been no violence
offered ; that it is wrong to say that a man has been driven
away, who has been prevented from entering ; that no man
can be driven away except from a place where he has planted
his footsteps. Decide therefore now, whether it is of the
greatest importance for the spirit of the law to be adhered to,
and for equity to prevail, or for all laws to be twisted accord-
ing to their literal expressions. Do you, I say, 0 judges, now
decide which of these things appears to you the most desirable.
While speaking of this, it happens very conveniently that
Caius Aquillius, that most accomplished man, is not here
now, who was here a httle while ago, and who has frequently
been present during this trial ; (for if he were present, I should
be more afraid to speak of hist virtue and prudence ; because
he himself would feel a degree of modesty at hearing his oWn
praises, and a similar kind of modesty would cramp me while
praising a man to his face;) and whose authority, it baa
VOL. n. F
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66 CICERO's ORATIONS.
been said, ought not to be too much deferred to in this cause.
I am not afraid of saying more in praise of such a man than
you yourselves either feel, or are wilhng to hear expressed be-
fore you. Wherefore I will say this, that too much weight
cannot be given to the authority of that man whose prudence
the Roman people has seen proved in taking precautions, not
in deceiving men ; who has never made a distinction between
the principles of civil law and equity; who for so many years
has given the Roman people fiie benefit of his abilities, his
industry, and his good faith, which have been always ready
&ad at their service ; who is so just and virtuous a man, that
he appears to be a lawyer by nature, not by education ; so
skilful and prudent a man, that not only some learning, but
that even goodness appears to be the oflspring of civil law ;
whose abilities are so great, whose good faith is so pure, that,
whatever you draw from thence, you feel you are drawing in
a pure and clear state. So that you are entitled to great
gratitude from us when you say that that man is the author
of our defence. But I marvel why you, when you say that
any one has formed an opinion xmfavourable to me, produce
the man who is my authority for my arguments, but say
nothing of him who is yours. But, however, what does the
man on whom you rely say 1 " In whatever terms a law is
framed and drawn up * * * "
XXVIII. I met a man of that body of lawyers ; as I be-
lieve, the very same man by whose advice you say that you
are conducting this cause, and arranging your arguments in
defence. And when he began that discussion with me, say-
ing that it could not be admitted that a man had been driven
from any place unless he had previously been in it, he con-
fessed that the facts and the intention of the interdict were on
my side ; but he said that I was cut ofiF by its terms, and he
did not think it possible to depart from its precise language.
When I produced many instances, and alleged even the very
grounds of all justice, to prove that in many cases all right
and the principles of justice and reason were at variance with
the words of the written law ; and that that had always pre-
vailed most, which had most authority and justice in it ; he
comforted me, and showed me that in this cause I had no
reason for anxiety, for that the actual words in which the
securities were drawn ^ up were on my side, if I considered
them carefuUy. " How so ?" said I. — " Because," said he.
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VOB A. CiECINA. 67
*' undoubtedly Csecina was driven away by armed men with
violence from some place or other ; if ^ not from the place to
which he desired to come, at all events from that place from
which he fled." What then ?— " The praetor," says he, " has
enjoined in his interdict that he shall be replaced in that
place from which he was driven away, whatever that place
may be from which he was driven away. But ^Ebutius, who
coiiesses that Csecina was driven away from some place
or other, must clearly have forfeited his security, since he
Sdsely says that he has replaced him."
What is the matter, Piso 1 do you choose to fight about
words 1 Do you think it fit to make the cause of justice and
equity, the cause not of our property only, but of every
man's property, to depend on a word ? I showed what my
opinion was ; what had been the course pursued by our an-
^ cestors ; what was worthy of the authority of those men by
whom the cause was to be decided ; that that was honest,
and just, .and expedient for all men, that it should, be con-
sidered with what design and with what intention a law had
been established, not in what words it was framed. You pin
me to the words. I will not be so pinned without objecting.
I say that it is not right, •! say that this point cannot be
maintained, I say that there is no single thing which can
be included in a law with sufficient accuracy, or guarded
against, or excepted against, if through some word being
overlooked or placed in an ambiguous position, though the
intention and the truth is completely ascertained, that which
is intended is not to prevail, but that which is expressed, is.
XXIX. And since I have now stated my objection plainly
enough, I will follow you where you invite me. I ask of
you. Was I driven away? not from the farm of Fulcinius, for
the praetor has not commanded me to be replaced only in the
tjase of my having been driven away from that particular
ferm, but he has ordered me to be replaced in the place from
which I was driven away. I was driven away from the ad- /
joining farm belonging to my neighbours, across which I was
going to that farm ; I was driven away from the road ; I
was certainly driven away from some place or other, from
some ground, either private or public. I am ordered to be
replaced there. You have said that you have replaced me;
I say that I have not been replaced in compliance with the
terms of the praetor's decree. What do we say to this?
p2
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68 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
Yonr defence must be destroyed either by your own sword (as
men say) or by mine. If you take refuge in the intention of
the interdict, and say that inquiry must be made into what
ferm was meant when ^butius was ordered to replace me,
and if you think it not right for the justice of the case to be
caught in a trap made of words, then you come into my
camp, you are fighting under my standard. That is my de-
fence; mine. I assert this loudly; I call all the gods and men
to witness, that, as our ancestors would allow no legal defence
to be pleaded for armed violence, the question before the
court is not, where were the footsteps of the man who was
driven away, but what was the act of the man who di*ove him
away ; I say loudly, that the man who was put to flight was
driven away, that violence was offered to the man who was
put in danger of his life. That topic you avoid and dread ;
and you try to call me back from the wide field, if I may so
say, of justice, to these narrow passes of words, and to all the
comers of letters. You shall yourself be hemmed in and
caught in those Yery toils which you try to oppose to me.
" I did not drive him away ; I drove him off." This seems
to you a very clever idea. This is the edge of your defence.
On that edge your own cause must inevitably fall. For I
reply to you in this way : — If I was not driven away from the
place which I was prevented from approaching, at all events
I was driven away from the place which I did approach, and
from which I fled. If the prsetor did not clearly define the
place in which he ordered me to be replaced, and merely
ordered me to be replaced, I have not been replaced accord-
ing to his decree. I wish, 0 judges, if all this appears to
you to be a more cunning system of defence than I usually
adopt, that you would consider, first of all, that another ori-
ginally devised it, and not I ; in the next place, that not only
I was not the originator of the system, but that I do not even
approve of it, and that I did not bring it forward for the
purposes of my own defence, but that I used it as a reply to
their defence ; that I can speak in behaK of my own rights,
and that in this matter which I have brought forward, what
ought to be inquired into is not, in what terms the prsetor
framed his interdict, but what was the place intended when
he framed it ; and that in a case of violence offered by armed
men, the thing to be inquired into is not, where the violence
was offered^ but whether it was offered or not ; and that you
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FOR A. CJECINA. 69
cannot possibly urge in your defence, that where you wish it
to be done, the words of the interdict ought to be regarded,
but that yfhere you do not wish it, they ought not to be
considered.
XXX. But is any answer given to me with reference to
that which I have abready mentioned, that this interdict was
so framed, not only as to &ct8, and as to its meaning, but
also as to its expressions, that nothing appeared to require
any alteration ? Listen carefiilly, 0 judg^ I beseech you,
for it becomes your wisdom to recognise, not my prudence,
but- that of our ancestors; for I am not going to mention
what I myself have discovered, but a thing which did not
escape their notice. When an interdict is issued respecting
acts of violence, they were aware that there are two descrip-
tions of causes to which the interdict had reference : one, if a
man had been driven by violence from the place in which he
was ; the other, if he was driven from the place to which he
was coming; and either of these may take place, and nothing
else can, 0 judges. Consider this then, if you please. If
any one has driven my household away from my farm, he
has driven me too from that place. If any one came up to
me with armed men, outside my farm, and prevented me
from entering, then he has driven me, not out of that place,
but from that place. For these two classes of actions they
invented one phrase which sufficiently expressed them both ;
so that, whether I had been driven out of my form, or from
my &rm, still I should be replaced by one and the same
interdict, containing the words " from which you . . . ."
These words " from which " comprehend either case : both
out of which place, and from which place. Whence was
Cinna driven ? Out of the city. Whence was Carbo driven ?
From the city. Whence were the Gauls driven 1 From the
Capitol. Whence were they driven who were with Gracchus 1
Out of the CapitoL You see, therefore, that by this one phrase
two things are signified, both out of what place, and from
what place ; and when the prsetor orders me to be replaced
in that place, he orders me to be so on this imderstanding,
just as if the Gauls had demanded of our ancestors to be
replaced in jthe situation from which they had been driven,
and if by any force they had been able to obtain it, it would
not, I imagine, have been right for them to be replaced in
the mine, bv which they had attacked the Capitol, but in the
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70 ' CICBR08 ORATIONS.
Capitol itself.' For this is understood — " Eeplace him in the
place from which you drove him away/* whether you drove
him out of the place, or from the place. This now is plain
enough; replace him in that place; if you drove him out
of tins place, replace him in it ; if you drove him from this
place, replace him in that place, not out of which, but from
which he was driven. Just as if a person at sea, when he had
come near to his own country, were on a sudden driven off
by a storm, and were to wish, as he had been driven off from
his coimtry, to be restored to his former position. What he
would wish, I imagine, would be this,^that fortune would re-
store him to the place from which he had been driven ; not
so as to replace him in the sea, but in the city which he was on
his way to. So too, (since now we are necessarily hunting
out the meaning of words from the similarity of the circum-
stances,) he who demands to be restored to the place from
which he was driven, — that is to say, whence he was driven,
—demands to be restored to that very place itself
XXXI. As the words lead us to this conclusion, so too the
case itself forces us to think and understand the same thing.
In truth, Piso, (I am returning now back to the. first points
of my defence,) if any one drives you out of your own house
with violence, by means of armed men, what will you do?
I suppose you will prosecute him by means of this same in-
terdict which we have been employing. What now, if, when
you are returning home from ihe forum, any one shall with
armed men prevent you from entering your own house, what
will you do ? You wiU avail yourself of the same interdict.
When, therefore, the praetor has issued his interdict com-
manding you to be replaced in the place from which you
were driven, you will interpret that interdict just as I do
now, and as it is plain it should be interpreted. As that
phrase " from which place " is of equal power in both cases,
and as you are ordered to be replaced in that place, you will
interpret it that you are just as much entitled to be replaced
in your own house if you have been driven out of the court-
yard, as if you have been driven out from the inmost cham-
bers of the house.
But in order, 0 judges, that there should be no doubt on
your part, whether you choose to regard the fact, or the
words, that you ought to decide in our favour, there arises
now, when every one of their expedients has been defeated
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72 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
if he can prove that the man had obtained possession from
him either by violence, or by underhand practices, or by
begging for it Do you not perceive how many defensive
pleas our ancestors allowed a man to be able to employ who
had done this violence without arms and without a multitude?
But as for the man who, neglecting right, and duty, and
proper customs, has betaken lumself to the sword, to arms,
and to murder, him you see naked and defenceless in the
cause ; so that the man who has contended in arms for the
possession, must clearly contend unarmed in the court of
justice. Is there, then, any real difference, 0 Piso, between
these interdicts 1 Does it make any difference whether the
words *^ As Aulus Csecina was in possession** be added, or not?
Does the consideration of right, — does the dissimilarity of
the interdicts, — does the authority of your ancestors, at all
influence you? If the addition had been made,' inquiry
must have been made as to this point. The addition has not^
been made. Must that inquiry still be instituted ? And in
this particular I do not defend Csecina. For, 0 judges,
Csecina was in possession ; and although it is foreign to this
cause, still I will briefly touch upon this point, to make you
as desirous to protect the man himself, as the common rights
of all men. You do not deny that Csesennia had a Hfe-
interest in the farm. As the same former who rented it
of Csesennia continued to hold it on the same tenure, is there
any doubt, that if Csesennia was the owner while the farmer
was tenant of the farm, so after her death her heir was the
owner by the same right ? Afterwards Csecina, when he was
going the roimd of his estates, came to that form. He
received his accounts from the farmer. There is evidence to
that point. After that, why, 0 jEbutius, did you give
notice to Csecina to give up that farm, rather than some
others, if you could find any other, imless Csecina was in
jossessian of it! Moreover, why did Csecina consent to be
egected in a regular and formal manner? and why did he
make you the answer he did by the advice of his friends, and
of Cains Aquillius himself ?
XXXIII. Oh, but Sylla passed a law. Without wasting
time in making any complaints about that time, and about
the disasters of the republic, I make you this answer, — ^that
Sylla also added to that same law, "that if anything were
enacted in this statute contrary to law, to that extent this
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FOR A. CJICINA. 73
statute was to have no validity." Whatns there which is
coutrary to law which the Roman people is unable to com-
mand or to prohibit? Not to digress too &r, this very
additional clause proves that there is something. For imless
there were, this would not be appended to all statutes. But
I ask of you whether you think, if the people ordered me to
be your slave, or, on the other hand, you to be mine, that
that order would be authoritative and valid 1 You see that
such an order is worthless. * * * *
First of all, you allow this, — ^that it does not follow that
whatever the people orders ought to be ratified. In the next
place, you allege no reason why, if liberty cannot possibly be
taken away, citizenship may. . For we have received our
traditions about each in the same way ; and if citizenship
can once be taken away, liberty cannot be preserved. For
how can a man be free by the rights of the Quirites, who
is not included in the number of the Quirites 1 vind I, when
quite a young man, established this principle when I was
pleading against Cotta, the most eloquent man of our city.
When T was defending the liberty of a woman of Arretium,
and when Cotta had suggested a scruple to the decemvirs that
our action was not a regular one, because the rights of
citizenship had been taken from the Arretines, and when I
argued rather vehemently that rights of citizenship could not
be taken away, at the first hearing the decemvirs gave no
decision ; afterwards, when^ they had inquired into, and deli-
berated on, the subject, they decided that our action was
quite regular. And this was decided, though Cotta spoke in
opposition to it, and while Sylla was alive. But now on the
other cities, why need I tell you how all men who are in Ihe
same circimistances proceed by law, and prosecute their
rights, and all avail themselves of the civil law without the
slightest hesitation on the part of any one, whether magis-
trate or judge, learned man or ignorant one? There is not
one of you who doubts this. At all events, I am well aware
that this is frequently asked, (as I must remind you of those
things which do not occur to yourself,) how it is, if the right
of citizenship cannot be taken away, that our citizens have
often gone to the Latin colonies. They have gone either of
their own accord, or in consequence of some penalty inflicted
by the law ; though if they would have submitted to the
penalty, they might have remained in the city.
XXXIV. What more need I ui^? What shall I say of a
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74 CIOBRO'S ORATIONa
man whom the chief of the fetiales ^ has given up, or whom
his own father or his people have sold? By what law does
l;ie lose his right of citizenship 1 In order that the city may
be released from some religious obligation, a Roman citizen is
surrendered ; and when he is accepted, he then beloDgs to
those men to whom he has been surrendered. If they refuse
to receive him, as the people of Nimiantia refused to receive
Mancinus,* he then retains his original rights of citizenship
unimpaired. If his father has sold him, he discharges him
from all subjection to his power, whom, when he was bom, he
had had absolute power over. When the people sells a man
who has not become a soldier, it does not take his liberty
from him, but decides that he is not a free man who is afraid
to encounter danger in order to be free ; but when it sells a
man whose name is not on the register, it judges in this
way, — that as a man who is in just slavery is not on the
register, a man who, though a free man, is unwilling to be on
th^ register, has, of his own accord, repudiated his freedom.
But if it is chiefly in those ways that freedom, or the rights
of citizenship, can be taken from a man, do not they who
mention these things understand that if our ancestors' chose
that those rights should be taken away for these reasons, they
chose also that they should not be taken away in any other
manner 1 For, as they have produced these arguments fix)m
the civil law, I wish they would also produce any case of men
having had either their rights of citizenship or their freedom
taken away by law. For as to banishment, it is very easy to
be understood what sort of thing that is. For banishment is
not a punishment, but is a reftige and harbour of safety
from punishment. For those who are desirous to avoid some
punishment or some calamity, turn to banishment alone, —
that is to say, they change their residence and their situation,
and, therefore, there will not be found in any law of ours, as
there is in the laws of other states, any mention of any crime
being punished with banishment. But as men wished to
^ " The Latin here is pater patrattia. When an injury had been sua-
tained by the state, four fetiales were deputed to seek redress, who again
elected one of their number to act as their representative ; this indi-
vidual was called pcUer pcUratus poptUi JRomanV*Sunih, Diet Ant.
p. 416, V. FeHalea,
' Caius Hostilius Mancinus had been defeated by the Numantines,
and had made a disgraceful peace with them, which the senate refused
to ratify, and delivered up Mancinus to the Numantines, in order to
annul the peace legally, but they refused to receive him.
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FOB A. OiECIKA. 75
avoid imprisonment, execution, or infitmy, which are penalties
appointed by the laws, they flee to banidiment as to an altar,
though, if they chose to remain in the city and to submit to
the rigour of the law, they would not lose their rights of
citizenship sooner than they lost their lives; but because they
do not so choose, their rights of citizenship are not taken
from them, but are abandoned and laid aside by them. For
as, according to our law, no one can be a citizen of two cities,
the rights of citizenship here are lost when he who has fled, is
received into banishment, — ^that is to say, into another city.
XXXV. I am not unaware, 0 judges, although I pass over
many things bearing on this right, that still I have dwelt on
it at greater length than the plan of your tribunal requires. '
But I did so, not because I thought that there was any need
of urging this defence to you, but in order that all men
might understand that the rights of citizenship never had
been taken, away from any one, and could not be taken
away. As I wished those men, whom Sylla desired to injure,
to know this, so I wished, also, all the other citizens, both
new and old, to be acquainted with it For no reason can be
produced why, if the rights of citizenship could be taken
from any new* citizen, they cannot also be taken away from
all the patricians, from all the very oldest citizens. For that,
with respect to this cause, I had no alarm, may be understood
in the first place frx)m this consideration, — ^that you have
no business to decide on that matter ; and in the second
place, that Sylla himself passed a law respecting the rights of
citizenship, avoiding any taking away of the le^ obligations
and rights of inheritance of these men. For he orders the
people of Ariminum to be under the same law that they
have been. And who is there who does not know that they
were one of the eighteen ^ colonies, and that they were able to
receive inheritances from Roman citizens ? But if the rights
of citizenship could by law be taken from Aulus Csecina, still
it would be more natural for us and all good men now
^ The new citizens are those who had been made citizens of Eome at
the termination of the Social War a few years before.
2 The old editions nsually have ** twelve," but eighteen is the correc-
tion of Savigny, which Orellius calls " certissima." In the second Punic
War, A.U.C. 643, of the thirty colonies of the Roman people, twelve
declared that they had no means of supplying the consuls with men or
money. The other eighteen remained faithful to their allegiance, and
of these eighteen Ariminum was one. Vide Livy, xxvii. 9, 10.
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76 Cicero's orations.
to inquire by what means we could reliere from injustice, and
retain as a citizen, a most well-tried and most virtuous man,
a man of the greatest wisdom, of the greatest virtue, of the
greatest authority at home, than now, when he could not lose
any particle of his right of citizenship, for any man to be
foimd, except one hke to you, 0 Sextus, in folly and impu-
dence, who should venture to say that his rights of citizenrfiip
have been taken from him. And since, 0 judges, he has never
abandoned his fiill rights, and has never yielded any point to
their audacity and insolence, I will say nothing more about the
common cause, and I leave the rights of the Roman people to
the protection of your good &ith and conscientious decision.
XXXVI. That man has always desired the gooa opinion of
you and of men like you so much that that is one of the
points about which he has been most anxious in this cause ;
nor has he been strugghng for anything else than not to seem
to abandon his right in an indifferent manner ; he has not
been more afraid of being thought to despise ^butius than
of being supposed to be despised by him.
Wherefore, if, without entering on the merits of the case
for a moment, I may speak of the man ; you have a man be-
fore you of eminent modesty, of tried virtue, of well-proved
loyalty, known both in good and bad fortime to the most
honourable men of all Etruria by many proofe of virtue and
humanity. It we must find feult with the opposite side, you
have a man before you, to say no more, who admits that he
collected armed men together, if, without reference to the
individuals, you inquire into the case ; as this is a trial about
violence, — as he who is accused admits that he committed
violence with the aid of armed men, — as he endeavours to,
defend himself by the letter of the law, not by the justice of
his cause, — ^as you see that even the letter of liie law is
i^inst him, and that the authority of the wisest men is on
our side ; that the question before the court is not whether
CfiBcina was in possession or not, and yet that it can be proved
that he /was in possession ; that still less is it^ the question
whether the farm belonged to Aulus Csecina or 'not, and yet
that I myself have proved that it did belong to him ; — as
all this is the case, decide what the interests of the republic
with reference to armed men, what his own confession of vio-
lence, what our decision with respect to justice, and what the
terms of the interdict respecting right, admonish you to d«ci/l«.
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DEPBNCB OP THE PBOPOSBD MANILIAN LAW. 77
THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF
THE PROPOSED MANILIAN LAW.
THI AB6VMBNT.
In the year b.c. 67, Anlus Gkbinins had obtained the passing of a decree
by "which Pompey was invested for three years with the supreme
command over all the Mediterranean, and oyer all the coasts of that
sea, to a distance of four hundred furlongs from the sea. And in this
command he had acted with great vigour and with complete succeKs ;
destroying all the pirates' strongholds, and distributing the men
themselves as colonists among the inland towns of Asia Minor and
Greece. After this achievement he did not return to Kome, but
remained in Asia, making various regulations for the towns which he
had conquered.
During this period Lucnllus had been prosecuting the war against
Mithridates, and proceeding gradually in the reduction of Pontus;
he had penetrated also into Mesopotamia, but had subsequently been
distressed by seditions in his army, excited by Clodius, his brother-
in-law ; and these seditions had given fresh courage to Mithridates,
who had fallen on Gains Triarius, one of his lieutenants, and routed
his army with great slaughter. At the time that Pompey commenced
his campaign against the pirates, the consul Marcus Aqnillius
Glabrio was sent to supersede Lucullus in his command ; but he was
perfectly incompetent to oppose Mithridates, who seemed likely with
such an enemy to recover all the power of which Lucullug had
deprived him. So* in the year b. c. 66, while Glabrio was still in
Bithynia, and Pompey in Asia Minor, Gains Manilius, a tribune of
the people, brought forward a proposition^ that, in addition to the
command which Pompey already possessed, he should be invested
with unlimited power in Bithynia, Pontus, and Armenia, for the
purpose of conducting the war against Mithridates. The measure
was strongly opposed by Gatulus and by Hortensius, but it was sup-
ported by Gaesar, and by Gicero in the following speech, which is the
first which he ever addressed to the people; and the proposition
was carried.
I. Although, 0 Romans, your numerous assembly has always
seemed to me the most agreeable body that any one can
^dress, and this place, which is most honourable to plead in,
has also seemed always the most distinguished place for de-
livering an oration in, still I have been prevented from trying
this road to glory, which has at all times been entirely open
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78 CTOBRO'S 0B1TI0N&
to every virtuous man, not indeed by my own will, but by
the system of life which I have adopted from my earliest
years. For as hitherto I have not dared, on account of my
youth, to intrude upon the authority of this place, and as I
considered that no arguments ought to be brought to this
place except such as were the fruit of great ability, and
worked up with the greatest industry, I have thought it fit to
dpvote all my time to the necessities of my friends. And
accordingly, this place has never been unoccupied by men
who were defending your cause, and my industry, which has
been virtuously and honestly employed about the dangers of
private individuals, has received its most honourable reward
in your approbation. For when, on accoimt of the adjourn-
ment of the comitia, I was three times elected the first prae-
tor by all the centuries, I easily perceived, 0 Romans, what
your opinion of me was, and what conduct you enjoined, to
others. Now, when there is that authority in me which you,
by conferring honours on me, have chosen that there should
be, and all that fecility in pleading which almost daily practice
in speaking can give a vigilant man who has habituated himself
to the forum, at all events, if I have any authority, I will
employ it before those who have given it to me ; and if I can
accomplish anything by speaking, I will display it to those
men above all others, who have thought fit, by tiieir decision,
to confer honours on that qualification. And, above all things,
i.^ee that I have reason to rejoice on this account, that, since
I am speaking' in this place, to which I am so entirely unac-
customed, I have a cause to advocate in which eloquence can
hardly fail any one ; for I have to speak of the eminent and
extraordinary virtue of Cnseus Pompey ; and it is harder for
me to find out how to end a discourse on such a subject, than
how to begin one. So that what I have to seek for is not so much
a variety of arguments, as modemtion in employing them.
II. And, that my oration may take its origin from the
same source from which all this cause is to be maintained ;
an important war, and one perilous to your revenues and to
your allies, is being waged against you by two most powerfril
kings, Mithridates and Tigranes. One of these having been
left to himself, and the other having been attacked, thinks
that an opportunity offers itself to him to occupy all Asia.
Letters are brought from Asia every day to Roman knights,
most honourable men, who have great property at stake,
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DEFENCE OF THE PEOPOSBD MANILIAN LAW. 79
which is all employed in the collectidn of your revenues ; and
they, in consequence of the intimate connexion which I have
witii their order, have come to me and entrusted me with the
task of pleading the cause of the republic, and warding off
danger from their private fortunes. They say that many of the
villages of Bithynia, which is at present a province belonging
to you, have been burnt ; that the kingdom of Ariobarzanes,
which borders on those districts from which you derive a reve-
nue, is whoUy in the power of the enemy ; that Lucullus, after
having performed great exploits, is departing from that war ;
that it is not enough that whoever succeeds him should be
prepared for the conduct of so important a war; that one
general is demanded and required by all men, both allies and
citizens, for that war ; that he alone is feared by the enemy,
and that no one else is. .
You see what the case is ; now consider what you ought
to do. It seems to me that I ought to speak in the first
place of the sort of war that exists ; in the second place, of its
importance ; and lastly, of the selection of a general. The
kind of war is such as ought above all others to excite and
inflame your minds to a determination to persevere in it. It
is a war in which the ^ory of the Roman people is at stake ;
that glory which has been handed down to you from your
ancestors, great indeed in everything, but most especially in
military affairs. The safety of our friends and allies is at
stake, in behalf of which your waoeKkKXCB have waged many
most important wars. The most certain and the largest
revenues of the Roman people are at stake ; and if they be
lost, you will be at a loss for the luxuries of peace, and the
sinews of war. The property of many citizens is at stake,
which you ought greatly to regard, both for your own sake,
and for that of the republic. -
III. And since you have at all times been covetous of glory
and greedy of praise beyond all other nations, you have
to wipe out that stain, received in the former Mithridatic
War, which has now fixed itself deeply and eaten its way into
the Roman name, the stain arising from the fact that he,
who in one day marked down by one order, and one single
letter, all the Roman citizens in all Asia, scattered as they
were over so many cities, for slaughter and butchery, has not
only never yet suffered any chastisement worthy of Ins wicked-
ness, but now, twenty-three years after that time, is stiU a
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80 CIOEROS ORATIONS.
king, aud a king in such a way that he is not content to ,
hide himself in Pontus, or in the recesses of Cappadocia, but
he seeks to emerge &om his hereditary kingdom, and to
range among your revenues, in the broad light of Asia. Indeed
up to this time your generab have been contending with the
king so as to carry off tokens of victory rather than actual
victory. Lucius Sylla has triumphed, Lucius Murena has
triumphed over Mithridates, two most gallant men, and most
consummate generals ; but yet they havo triumphed in such
a way that he, though routed and defeated, was still king.
Not but what praise is to be given to those generals for what
they did. Pardon must be conceded to them for what they
left undone ; because the republic recalled Sylla from that
war into Italy, and Sylla recalled Murena.
IV. But Mithridates employed all the time which he had
left to him, not in forgetting the old war, but in preparing for
a new one ; and, after he had built and equipped very large
fleets, and had got together mighty armies from every nation
he could, and had pretended to be preparing war against the
tribes of the Bosphorus, his neighbours, sent ambassadors
and letters as far as Spain to those chiefs with whom we were
at war at the time, in order that, as you would by that means
have war waged against you in the two parts of the world
the furthest separated and most remote of all from one an-
other, by two separate enemies warring against you with one
imiform plan, you, hampered by the double enmity, might
find that you were fighting for ihe empire itself However,
the danger on one side, the danger from Sertorius and from
Spain, which had much the most solid foundation and the
most formidable strength, was warded off by the divine wis*
dom and extraordinary valour of Cnseus Pompeius. And on
the other side of the empire, affairs were so managed by
Lucius Lucullus, that most illustrious of men, that the be-
ginning of all those achievements in those countries, great
aud eminent as they were, deserve to be attributed not to his
good fortune but to his valour ; but the latter events which
have taken place lately, ought to be imputed not to his fault,
but to his ill-fortune. However, of Lucullus I will speak
hereafter, and I will speak, 0 Romans, in such a manner,
that his true glory shall not appear to be at all disparaged by
my pleading, nor, on the other hand, shall any undeserved
credit seem to be given to him. At present, when we are
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DEFENCE OP THE PROPOSED MANILUN LAW. 81
speaking of the dignity and glory of your empire, since that
is the beginning of my oration, consider what feelings you
think you ought to entertain.
V. Your saaodKkatB have often waged war on acootmt of
their merchants and seafaring men having been injuriously
treated. What ought to be your feelings when so many
thousand Roman citizens have been put to death by one
order and at one time ? Because thdr ambaasadors had been
spoken to with insolence, your ancestors determined that
Corinth, the light of all Greece, should be destroyed. Will you
allow that king to remain unpunished, who has murdered a
lieutenant of the Eoman peoplQ of consular rank, having tor-
tured him with chains and scourging, and every sort of
punishment ? They would not allow the freedom of Roman
citizens to be diminished ; will you be indifferent to their hves
being taken ? They avenged the privileges of our embassy when
they were violated by a word ; will you abandon an ambassador
who has been put to death with every sort of cruelty ? Take
care lest, as it was a most glorious thing for them, to leave
you such wide renown and such a powerftil empire, it should
be a most discreditable thing for you, not to be able to defend
and preserve that which you have rooeived. What more
shall I say ? Shall I say, that the safety of our allies is in-
volved in the greatest hazard and danger ? King Ariobar-
zanes has been driven from his kingdom, an ally and friend
of the Roman people; two kings are threatening all Asia, who
are not only most hostile to you, but also to your friends and
allies. And every city throughout all Asia, and throughout
all Greece, is compelled by the magnitude of the danger to put
its whole trust in the expectation of your assistance. They
do not dare to beg of you any particular general, especially
since you have sent them another, nor do they think that
they can do this without extreme danger. They see and feel
this, the same thing which you too see and feel, — ^that there
is one man in whom all qualities are in the highest perfec-
tion, and that he is near, (which circumstance makes it seem
harder to be deprived of him,) by whose mere arrival and
name, although it was a maritime war for which he came,
they are nevertheless aware that the attacks of the enemy
were retarded and repressed. They then, since they cannot
speak freely, silently entreat you to think them (as you have
thought your allies in the other provinces) worthy of having
VOL. iL a
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82 CIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
their safety recommended to such a man ; and to think them
worthy even more than others, because we often send men
with absolute authority into such a province as theirs, of such
character, that, even if they protect them from the enemy,
still their arrival among tifie cities of the allies is not very
different from an invasion of the enemy. They used to hear
of him before, now they see him among them; a man of such
moderation, such mildness, such humanity, that those seem
to be the happiest people among whom he remains for the
longest time.
VI. Wherefore, if on accoimt of their allies, though they
themselves had not been roused by any injuries, your ances-
tors waged war against Antiochus, against Philip, against
the ^tolians, and against the Carthaginians ; with how much
earnestness ought you, when you yourselves have been pro-
voked by injurious treatment, to defend the safety of the
allies, and at the same time, the dignity of your empire ?
especially when your greatest revenues are at stake. For the
revenues of the other provinces, 0 Eomans, are such that we
; can scarcely derive enough from them for the protection of
the provinces themselves. But Asia is so rich and so pro-
ductive, that in the fertility of its soil, and in the variety of
its fruits, and in the vastness of its pasture lands, and in the
multitude of all those things which are matters of exporta-
tion, it is greatly superior to all other countries. Therefore,
0 Eomans, this province, if you have any regard for what
tends to your advantage in time of war, and to your dignity in
time of peace, must be defended by you, not only from all
calamity, but from all fear of calamity. For in other matters
when calamity comes on one, then damage is sustained ; but
in the case of revenues, not only the arrival of evil, but the
bare dread of it, brings disaster. For when the troops of the
enemy are not far off, even though no actual irruption takes
place, still the flocks are abandoned, agriculture is relin-
quished, the sailing of merchants is at an end. And accord-
ingly, neither from harbour dues, nor from tenths, nor from
the tax on pasture lands, can any revenue be maintained.
And therefore it often happens that the produce of an entire
year is lost by one rumour of danger, and by one alarm of
war. What do you think ought to be the feeling^ of those
who pay us tribute, or of those who get it in, and exact it,
when two kings with very numerous armies are all but on the
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DEFENOE OF THE PROPOSED ICANILIAN LAW. 83
^ot 1 when one inroad of cavalry may in a very short time
carry off the revenue of a whole year ) when the publicans
think that they retain the large households of slaves which
they have in the salt-works, in the fields, in the harbours, and
custom-houses, at the greatest risk 1 Do you think that you
can enjoy these advantages unless you preserve those men
who are productive to you, free not only, as I said before,
from calamity, but even from the dread of calamity ?
VII. And even this must not be neglected by you, which
I had proposed to myself as the last thing to be mentioned,
when I was to speak of the kind of war, for it concerns the
property of many Eoman citizens ; whom you, as becomes
your wisdom, 0 Komans, must regard with the most careful
solicitude. The publicans,^ most honourable and accomplished
men, have taken aU their resources and all their wealth into
that province ; and their property ^and fortunes ought, by
themselves, to be an object of your especial care. In truth, if
we have always considered the revenues as the sinews of the
republic, certainly we shall be right if we call that order
of men which collects them, the prop and support of all the
other orders. In the next place, clever and industrious men,
of all the other orders of the state, are some of tHem actually
trading themselves in Asia, and you ought to show a regard
for their interests in their absence ; and others of them have
large sums invested in that province. It will, therefore,
become your humanity to protect a large number of those
citizens from misfortune ; it will become your wisdom to per-
ceive tiiat the misfortime of many citizens cannot be separated
from the misfortune of the republic. In truth, firstly, it is of
but little consequence for you afterwards to recover for the
publicans revenues which have been once lost ; for the same
men have not afterwards the same power of contracting for
them, and others have not the inclination, through fear. In
the next place, that which the same Asia, and that same
Mithridates taught us, at the beginning of the Asiatic war, that,
at all events, we, having learnt by disaster, ought to keep in
our recollection. For we know that then, when many had
lost large fortunes in Asia, all credit failed at Rome, from
payments being hindered. For it is not possible for many
men to lose their property and fortunes in one city, without
* It has been said before that the publicans were taken almost
exclnsiyely from the equestrian order.
g2
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84 CICERO's ORATIONS.
drawing many along with them into the same vortex of dis-
aster. But do you now preserve the republic from this mis-
fortune ; and believe me, (you yourselves see that it is the
case,) this credit, and this state of the money-market which
exists at Kome and in the forum, is bound up with, and is
inseparable from, those fortunes which are invested in Asia.
Those fortunes cannot fell without credit here being under-
mined by the same blow, and perishing dlong with them.
Consider, then, whether you ought to hesitate to apply your-
selves with all zeal to that war, in which the glory of your
name, the safety of your allies, your greatest revenues, and
the fortunes of numbers of your citizens, will be protected at
the same time as the republic.
VIII. Since I have spoken of the description of war, I will
now say a few words about its magnitude. For this may be
said of it, — ^that it is a kind of war so necessary, that it must
absolutely be waged, and yet not one of such magnitude as
to be formidable. And in this we must take the greatest
care that those things do not appear to you contemptible
which require to be most diligently guarded against. And
that all men may understand that I give Lucius LucuUus all
the praise that is due to a gallant man, and most wise ^ man,
and to a most consummate general, I say that when he first
arrived in Asia, the forces of Mithridates were most numerous,
well appointed, and provided with every requisite ; and that
the finest city in Asia, and tbe one, too, that was most friendly
to us, the city of Cyzicus, was besieged by the king in person,
with an enormous army, and that the siege had been pressed
most vigorously, when Lucius LucuUus, by his valour, and
perseverance, and wisdom, relieved it fropa the most extreme
danger. I say that he also, when general, defeated and
destroyed that great and well-appointed fleet, which the
chiefs of Sertorius's party were leading against Italy with
fiirious zeal ; I say besides, that by him numerous' armies of
the enemy were destroyed in several battles, and that Pontus
was opened to our legions, which before his time had been
closed against the Koman people on every side; and that
^ * The Latin is, "forti viro, et sapientissimo Jiomini" and this oppo-
sition of vir and Jiomo is not nncommon in Cicero's orations. ** Eomo
Is nearly synonymous with vir, but with tiiis distinction, that ruymo is
used of a man considered as an intellectual and moral being, — ^namely,
where personal qualities are to be denoted ; whereas vvr signifies a man
in his relations to the state."— Biddle, Lat. Diet v. Bom<K
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DEFENCE OP THE PROPOSED MANILIAN LAW. 85
Sinope and Amisus^ towns in whioh the king had palaces, />
adorned and furnished with every kind of magnificence, and ^
many other cities of Pontus and Cappadocia, were taken by ^^'
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86 CICERO's ORATIONS.
that our army had' been led into those countries with the
object of plundering a very wealthy and most religiously
worshipped temple. And so, many powerful nations were
roused against us by a fresh dread and alarm. But our army,
although^ it had taken a city of Tigranes's kingdom, apd had
fought some successful battles, still was out of spirits at its
immense distance from Eome, and its separation from its
friends. At present I will not say more; for the result
of these feelings of theirs was, that they were more anxious
for a speedy return home than for any ftirther advance into
the enemies' coimtry. But Mithridates had by this time
strengthened his army by reinforcements of those men belong-
ing to his own dominions who had assembled together, and by
' large promiscuous forces belonging to many other kings and
tribes. And we see that this is almost invariably the case,
that kings when in misfortune easily induce many to pity and
assist them, especially such as are either kings themselves, or
who hve imder kingly power, because to them the name
of king appears something great and sacred. And accord-
ingly he, when conquered, was able to accomplish what, when
he was in the frill enjoyment of liis powers, he never dared
even to wish for. For when he had returned to his kingdom,
he was not content (though that had happened to him beyond
all his hopes) with again setting his foot on that land after he
had been expelled from it ; but he even volunteered an attack
on your army, flushed as it was with glory and victory.
Allow me, in this place, 0 Romans, (just as poets do who
write of Roman affairs,) to pass over our disaster, which was
so great that it came to Lucius Lucullus's ears, not by means
of a messenger despatched from the scene of action, but
through the report of common conversation. At the very
time of this misfortune, — of this most terrible disaster in
the whole war, Lucius Lucullus, who might have been able,
to a great extent, to remedy the calamity, being compelled
by your orders, because you thought, acoording to the old
principle of your ancestors, that Imiits ought to be put to
length of command, discharged a part of his soldiers who had
served their appointed time, and delivered over part to
Glabrio. I pass over many things designedly ; but you
yourselves can easily conjecture how important you ought to
consider that war which most powerftil kings are imiting
in, — which disturbed nations are renewing, — ^which nationi^
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DBFBNOB OF THE PBOPOSED MANILIAN LAW. 87
whose strength is unimpaired, are undertaJdng, and which
a new general of yours has to encounter after a veteran army
' has been defeated.
X. I appear to have said enough to nmke you see why
this war is in its veiy nature imavoidable, in its magnitude
dangerous. It remains for me to speak of the general who
ought to be selected for that war, and appointed to the
management of such important aflfairg.
I wish, O Komans, that you had such an abundance of
brave and honest men, that it was a difl&cult subject for your
deliberations, whom you thought most desirable to be ap-
pointed to the conduct of such important af^urs, and so vast
a war. But now, when there is Cufi&ius Pompeius alone, who
has exceeded in valour, not only the glory of these men who
are now alive, but even aU reoc^ilections of antiquity, what is
there that, in this case, can raise a doubt in the mind of any
one ? For I think that these four qualities are indispensable in
a great general, — ^knowledge of military afl^rs, valour, autho-
^rity and good fortune. Who, then, ever was, or ought to
have been, better acquainted with military affairs than this
man? who, the moment that he left school and finished his edu-
cation as a boy, at a time when there was a most important
war going on, and most active enemies were banded against
us, went to his father's army and to the discipline of the
camp; who, when scarcely out of his boyhood, became a
soldier of a consummate general, — ^when entering on man-
hood, became himself the general of a mighty army ; who
has been more firequently engaged with the enemy, than
any one else has ever disputed with an adversary ; who has
himself, as general, conducted more wars than other men
have t&bA of ; who has subdued more provinces than other
men have widied for ; whose youth was trained to the know-
ledge of military aflfeiirs, not by the precepts of others, but
by commanding himself, — ^not by the disasters of war, but
by victories, — not by campaigns, but by triumphs. In diort^
what description of war can there be in which the fortune of
the republic has not given him practice ? Civil war, African
wkr. Transalpine war, Spanish war, promiscuous war of the
most warlike cities and nations, servile war, naval war, every
variety and diversity of wars and of enemies, has not only been
encountered by this one man, but encountered victoriously ;
and these exploits show plainly that there is no circumstance
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88 CICEBO S ORATIONS.
in military practice which can elude the knowledge of this
XI. But now, what language can be found equal to the
valour of Cnseus Pompeius 1 What statement can any one
make which shall be either worthy of him, or new to you, or
unknown to any one ? For those are not the only virtues
of a general which are usually thought so, — namely, industry
in business, fortitude amid dangers, eneigy in acting, rapidity
in executing, wisdom in foreseeing ; which all exist in as great
perfection in that one man as in all the other generals put
together whom we have either seen or heard of. Italy is my
witness, which that illustrious conqueror himself, Lucius
Sylla, confessed had been delivered by this man's valour and
ready assistance. Sicily is my witness, which he released
when it was surrounded on all side^ by many dangers, not
by the dread of his power, but by the promptitude of his
v^sdom. Africa is my witness, which, having been over-
whelmed by mmierous armies of enemies, overflowed with the
blood of those same enemies. Gaul is my witness, through
which a road into Spain was laid open to our legions by
the destruction of the Gauls. Spain is my witness, which
has repeatedly seen our many enemies there defeated and
subdued by this man. Again and again, Italy is my Witness,
which, when it was weighed down by the disgraceful and
perilous servile war, entreated aid from this man,<though he
was ait a distance ; and that war, having dwindled down and
wasted away at the expectation of Pompeius, was destroyed
and buried by his arrival. But now, also every coast, all
foreign nations and countries, all seas, both in their open
waters and in every bay, and creek, and harbour, are my
witnesses. For during these last years, what place in any
part of the sea had so strong a garrison as to be safe from
him? what place was so much hidden as to escape his notice?
Who ever put to sea without being aware that he was com-
mitting himself to the hazard of death or slavery, either from
storms or from the sea, being crowded with pirates? Who
would ever have supposed that a war of such extent, so mean,
BO old a war, a war so extensive in its theatre and so widfely
scattered, could have been terminated by all our generals put
together in one year, or by one general in all the years of his
life ? In all these later years what province have you had
free from pirates? what revenue has been safe? what ally
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DEFENCE OF THE PROPOSED MANILIAN LAW. 89
have you been able to protect? to whom have your fleets
been any defence 1 How many islands do you suppose have
been deserted ? how many cities of the allies do you think
have been either abandoned out of fear of the pirates, or
have been taken by them ?
XII. But why do I speak of distant events ? It was — it
was, indeed, icam&Aj — a characteristic of the Koman people
to carry on its wars at a distance from home, and to defend by
the bulwarks of its power not its own homes, but the fortunes^
of its allies. Need I say, that the sea has during all these
latter years been closed against your allies, when even our
own armies never ventured to cross over from Brundusium,
except in the depth of winter ? Need I complain that men
who were coming to you from foreign nations were taken
prisoners, when even the ambassadors of the Roman people
were forced to be ransomed ? Need I say, that the sea was
not safe for merchants, when twelve axes^ came into the
power of the pirates? Need I mention, how Cnidus, and
Colophon, and Samos, most noble cities, and others too in
countless numbers, were taken by them, when you know that
your own harbours, and those harbours too from which you
derive, as it were, your very life and breath, were in the
power of the pil^tes 1 Are you ignorant that the harbour of
Caieta, that illustrious harbour, when full of ships, was plun-
dered by the pirates under the very eyes of the prs&tor ? and
that from Misenum, the children of the very man who had
before that waged war against the pirates in that place, were
carried off by the pirates ? For why should I complain of
the disaster of Ostia, and of that stain and blot on the re-
public, when almost under your very eyes, that fleet which was
under the command of a Roman consul was taken and
destroyed by the pirates 1 0 ye immortal gods ! could the
incredible and godlike virtue of one man in so short a time
bring so much light to the repuljlic, that you who had lately
been used to see a fleet of the enemy before the mouth of the
Tiber, should now hear that there is not one ship belonging to
the pirates on this side of the Atlantic ? And although you
have seen with what rapidity these things yere done, still that
rapidity ought not to be passed over by me in speaking of
* The Scholiast says that a consul named Milienus (whose name, how-
ever, does not appear in the Fasti) was taken prisoner by the pirates, and
sold with his ensigns of office. The axes mean his fiEksces.
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00 OICBRO'S ORATIONS.
them. — ^For who ever, even if he were only going for the pur-
pose of transacting business or making profit, contrived in so
short a time to visit so many places, and to perform such
long journeys, with as great celerity as Cnseus Pompeius has
performed his voyage, bearing with him the terrors of war as
our general 1 He, when the weather could hardly be called
open for sailing, went to Sicily, explored the coasts of Africa ;
from thence he came with his fleet to Sardinia, and these
three great granaries of the republic he fortified with power-
ftd garrisons and fleets ; when, leaving Sardinia, he came to
Italy, having secured the two Spains and Cisalpine Gaul
with garrisons and ships. Having sent vessels also to the
coast of Illyricum, and to every part of Achaia and Greece,
he also adorned the two seas of Italy with very large fleets,
and very sufficient garrisons ; and he himself going in person,
added all Cilicia to the dominions of the Boman people, on
the forty-ninth day after he set out from Brundusium. All
the pu-ates who were anywhere to be found, were either taken
prisoners and put to death, or else had surrendered themselves
voluntarily to the power and authority of this one man.
Also, when the Cretans had sent ambassadors to implore his
mercy even into Pamphyha to him, he did nof deny them
hopes of being allowed to surrender, and he exacted hostages
from them. And thus Cnseus Pompeius at the end of winter
prepared, at the beginning of spring undertook, and by the
middle of summer terminatod, this most important war, which
had lasted so long, which was scattered in such distant and
such various plac^ and by which every nation and country
was incessantly distressed.
XIII. This is the godlike and incredible virtue of that
general. ^What more shall I say 1 How many and how great
are his other exploits which I began to mention a short time
back j for we are not only to seek for skill in war in a con-
summate and perfect general, but there are many other
eminent qualities which are the satellites and companions of
this virtue. And first of all, how great should be the incor-
ruptibility of generals ! How great should be their modera-
tion in everything ! how perfect their good feith ! How
universal should be their affability ! how brilliant their
genius ! how tender their humanity ! And let us briefly
consider to what extent these qualities exist in Cnseus Pom-,
peius. For they are all of the h^hest importance^ 0 Bomancf,
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DEFENCE OF THE PROPOSED MANILIAN LAW. 91
but yet they are to be seen and ascertained more by com-
parison with the conduct' of others than by any display which
they make of themselves. For how can we rank a man
among generals of any class at all, if centurionships ' are sold,
and have been constantly sold in his army ? What great or
honourable thoughts can we suppose that that man cherishes
concerning the republic, who has either distributed the money
which was taken from the treasury for the conduct of the war
€unong the magistrates, out of ambition' to keep his province,
or, out of avarice, has left it behind him at Rome, invested for
his own advantage 1 Your murmurs show, O Romans, that
you recognise, in my description, men who have done these
things. But I name no one, so that no one can be angry with
me, without making confession beforehand of his own mal-
practices. But who is there who is ignorant what terrible
distresses our armies suflfer wherever they go, through this
covetousness of our geuerals ? Recollect the marches which,
during these latter years, our generals have made in Italy,
through the lands and towns of the Roman citizens ; then
you will more easily imagine what is the course pursued
among foreign nations. Do you think that of late years more
cities of the enemy have been destroyed by the arms of your
soldiers, or more cities of your own allies by their winter
campaigns ? For that general who does not restrain himself
can never restrain his army ; nor can he be strict in judging
others who is unwilling for others to be strict in judging him.
• Do we wonder now that this man should be so fiir superior to
ail others, when his legions arrived in Asia in such order that
not only no man's hand in so numerous an army, but not even
any man's footstep was said to have done the least injury to
any peaceful inhabitant ? But now we have daily nmiours —
ay, and letters too— ^brought to Rome about the way in which
the soldiers are behaving in their winter quarters ; not only
is no one compelled to spend money on the entertainment of
the troops, but he is not permitted to do so, even if he wish.
For our anoestors thought fit that the houses of our allies and
^ The Scholiast Bays that Cicero is here hinting at Glabrio the
consul, or at the younger Marius.
* Lncullus is supposed to be meant here, as it is said that he had em-
ployed large sums in soliciting the votes of influential men, so as to be left
in command of the province of Asia, in which he had amassed enormous
riches.
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92 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
fiiends should be a shelter "to our soldiers from the winter,
not a theatre for the exercise of their avarice.
XIV. Come now, consider also what moderation he has
displayed in other matters also. How was it, do you suppose,
that he was able to display that excessive rapidity, and to per-
form that incredible voyage 1 For it was no unexampled
number of rowers, no hitherto unknown skill in navigation,
no new winds, which bore him so swiftly to the most distant
lands ; but those circimistances which are wont to delay
other men did not delay him. No Avarice turned him aside
from his intended route in pursuit of some plunder or other ;
HO lust led him away in pursuit of pleasure; no luxury
allured him to seek its delights ; the illustrious reputation of
no city tempted him to make its acquaintance; even labour
did not turn him aside to seek rest. Lastly, as for the statues,
and pictures, and other embellishments of Greek cities, which
other men think worth carrying away, he did not think them
worthy even of a visit from him. And, therefore, every one
Tn those countries looks upon CnsBus Pompeius as some one
descended from heaven, not aa some one sent out from this
city. Now they begin to believe that there really were for-
merly Romans of the same moderation ; which hitherto has
seemed to foreign nations a thing incredible, a false and ridi-
culous tradition. Now tiie E^lendour of your dominion is
really brilliant in the eyes of those nations. Ijfow they imder-
stand that it was not without reason that, when we had
magistrates of the same moderation, their ancestors preferred
being subject to the Roman people to being themselves lords
of otiier nations. But now the access of all private individuals
to him is so easy, their complaints of the injuries received from
others are so little checked, that he who in dignity is superior
to the noblest men, in affability seems to be on a par with the
meanest. How great his wisdom is, how great his authority
and fluency in speaking,— and that too is a quality in which
the dignity of a general is greatly concerned, — ^you, 0 Romans,
have often experienced yourselves in this very place. But
how gr^t do you think his good faith must have been towards
your aUies, when the enemies of all nations have placed im-
plicit confidence in it ? ^ His humanity is such that it is
difficult to say, whether the enemy feared his valour more
when fighting against him, or loved his mildness more when
they had been conquered by him. And will any one doubt,
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DEFENCE OP THE PROPOSED MANILIAN LAW. 93
that this unportant war ought to be entrusted to him, who
seems to have been bom by some especial design and favour
of the gods for the express purpose of finishing all the wars
which have existed in their own recollection 1
XV. And since authority has great weight in conducting
wars, and in discharging the duties of military command,
it certainly is not doubtM to any one that in that point this
same general is especially. preeminent. And who is ignorant
that it is of great importance in the conduct of wars, what
opinion the enemy, and what opinion the allies have of your
generals, when we know that men are not less influenced
in such serious affairs, to despise, or fear, or hate, or love
a man by common opinion and common report, than by sure
grounds and principles ? What name, then, in the whole
world has ever been more illustrious than hisi whose achieve-
ments have ever been equal to his? And, what gives authority
in the highest degree, concerning whom have you ever i)assed
such numerous and such honourable resolutions? Do you
believe that there is anywhere in the whole world any place
so desert that the renown of that day has not reached it,
when the whole Roman people, the forum being crowded,
and all the adjacent temples from which this place can
be seen being completely filled, — the whole Roman people,
I say, demanded Cnseus Pompeius alone as their general in the
war in which the common interests of all nations were at
stuke 1 Therefore, not to say more on the subject, nor to
confirm what I say by instances of others as to the influence
which authority has in war, all out instances of splendid
exploits in war must be taken from this same Cnaeus Pom-
peius. The very day that he was appointed by you com-
mander-in-chief of the maritime war, in a moment such a
cheapness of provisions ensued, (though previously there had
been a great scarcity of com, and the price had been exceed-
ingly high,) owing to the hope conceived of one single man,
and his high reputation, as could scarcely have been produced
by a most productive harvest after a long period of peace.
Now, too, after the disaster which befel us in Pontus, from
the result of that battle, of which, sorely against miy will,
I just now reminded you, when our allies were in a state
of alarm, when the power and spirits of our enemies had
risen, and the province was in a very insufficient state of
defence, you would have entirelv lost Asia, O Romans, if the
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94 Cicero's orations.
fortune of the Koman people had not, by some diving
interposition, brought Cnaeus Pompeius at that particular
moment into those regions. His arrival both checked Mithri-
dates, elated with his unusual victory, and delayed Tigranes,
who was threatening Asia with a formidable army. And, can
any one doubt what he will accomplish by his valour, when
he did so much by his authority and reputation 1 , or how
easily he will preserve our allies and our revenues by his
power and his army, when he defended them by the mere
terror of his name ?
XVI. Come, now; what a great proof does this circum-
stance afford us of the influence of the same man on the
enemies of the Roman people, that all of them, living in
countries so far distant from us and from each other, sur-
rendered themselves to him alone in so short a time % that
the ambassadors of the Cretans, though there was at the
time a general^ and an army of ours in their island, came
almost to the end of the world to Cneeus Pompeius, and said, ^
all the cities of the Cretans were willing to surrender them-
selves to him? What did Mithridates himself do? Did
he not send an ambassador into Spain to the same Cnseus
Pompeius ? a man whom Pompeius has always considered an
ambassador, but who that party, to whom it has always been
a source of annoyance that he was sent to him particularly,
have contended wqs sent as a spy rather than as an am-
bassador. You can now, then, 0 Romans, form an accurate
judgment how much weight you must suppose that this
authority of his — now, too, that it has been fiirther increased
by many subsequent exploits, and by many commendatory
resolutions of your own — will have with those kings and
among foreign nations.
It remains for me timidly and briefly to speak of his good
fortune, a quality which no man ought to boast of in his own
case, but which we may remember and commemorate as
happening to another, just as a man may extol the power
of the gods. For my judgment is this, that very often
commands have been cbnferred upon, and armies have been
entrusted to Maximus, to Marcellus, to Scipio, to Marius, and
to other great generals, not only on account of their valour,
but also on account of their good fortune. For there has
* Mitellufl, afterwards called Creticus, from his victory over the
Cretans.
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DEFENOB OF THE PROPOSED KAKILlAN LAW. 95
been^ in truth, in the case of some most illustrious men,
good fortune added as some contribution of the gods to
their honour and glory, and as a means of performing
mighty achievements. But concerning the good fortune of
this man of whom we are now speaking, I wiU use so much
moderation as not to say that good fortune was actually
placed in his power, but I will so speak as to appear to
~ remember what is past, to have good hope of wiuit is to
come ; so that my speech may, on the one hand, not appear
to the immortal gods to be arrogant, nor, on the other hand,
to be ungrateful. Accordingly, I do not intend to mention,
0 Eomans, what great exploits he has achieved both at home
and in war, by land and by sea, and with what invariable
felicity he has achieved them; how, not only the citizens
have always consented to his wishes, — the allies complied
with them, — the enemy obeyed them, but how even the
winds and weather have seconded them. I will only say this,
most briefly, — ^that no one has ever been so impudent as to
dare in silence to wish for so many and such great favours as
the immortal gods have showered upon Cnseus Pompeius.
And that this favour may continue his, and be perpetual, you,
O Romans, ought to wish and pray (as, indeed, you do), both
for the sake of the common safety and prosperity, and for the
sake of the man himself.
Wherefore, as the war is at the same time so necessary that
it cannot be neglected, so important that it must be con-
ducted with the greatest care ; and since you have it in your
power to appoint a general to conduct it, in whom there
is the most perfect knowledge of war, the most extraordinary
valour, the most splendid personal influence, and the most
. eminent good fortune, can you hesitate, 0 Romans, to apply
this wonderful advantage which is oflFered you and given you
by the immortal gods, to the preservation and increase of the
power of the republic 1
XVIT. But, if Cneeus Pompeius were a private individual
at Rome at this present time, still he would be the man who
ought to be selected and sent out to so great a war. But
now, when to all the other exceeding advantages of the
appointment, this opportunity is also added, — that he is
in those very countries already, — that he has an army,
with him, — that there is another army there which can
at once be made over to him by those who are in command
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96 oicerq's orations.
of it, — ^why do we delay 1 or why do we not, under th©
guidance of the immortal gods themselves, commit this
royal war also to him to whom all the other wars in those
parts have been already entrusted to the greatest advantage,
to the, very safety of the republic?
But, to be sure, that most illustrious man, Quintus Catulus,
a man most honestly attached to "the irepublic, and loaded
with your kindness in a way most honourable to him ; and
also Quintus Hortensius, a man endowed with the highest
qualiti«s of honour, and fortune, and virtue, and genius,
disagree to this proposal. And I admit that their authority
has in many instances had the greatest weight with you, and
that it ought to have the greatest weight ; but in this cause,
although you are aware that the opinions of many very-
brave and illustrious men are unfavourable to us, still it
is possible for us, disregarding those authorities, to arrive at
the truth by the circumstances of the case and by reason.
And so much the more easily, because those very men admit
that everjrthing which has been said by me up to this time is
true, — that the war is necessary, that it is an important
war, and that all the requisite qualifications are in the
highest perfection in Cnseus Pompeius. What, then, does
Hortensius say 1 " That if the whole power must be given
to one man, Pompeius alone is most worthy to have it;
but thatj nevertheless, the power ought not to be entrusted
to one individual." That argument, however, has now become
obsolete, having been refuted much more by fects than by
words. For you, also, Quintus Hortensius, said many things
with great force and fluency (as might be expected from
your exceeding ability, and eminent fitciUty as an orator) in
the senate against that brave man, Aulus Gabiniua, when he
had brought forward the law about appointing one com
mander-in-chief against the pirates; and also from this
place where I now stand, you niade a long speech against that
law. What then ? By the immortal gods, if your authority
had had greater weight with the Koman people than thi
safety and real interests of the Roman people itself, should
we have been this day in possession of our present glory, and
of the empire of the whole earth 1 Did this, then, appear to
you to be dominion, when it was a common thing for the
ambassadors, and prsetors, and quaestors of the Roman people
to be taken prisoners? when we were cut off from all
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DEFENCE OF THE PROPOSED ICANILIAN LAW. 97
supplies, both public and private, from all our proYinces ?
when all the seaa were so closed against us, that we could
neither visit any private estate of our own, nor any public
domain beyond the sea ]
XVIII. What city ever was ikere before this time, — I speak
not of the city of the Athenians, which is said formerly to
have had a sufficiently extensive naval dominion; nor of that
of the Carthaginians, who had great power with their fleet
and maritime resources ; nor of those of the Rhodians, whose
naval discipline and naval renown has lasted even to our
recollection, — but was there ever any city before this time so
insignihcant, if it was only a small island, as not to be able
by its own power to defend its harbours, and its lands,
and some part of its country and maritime coast) But,
forsooth, for many years before the Gabinian law was passed,
the Eoman people, whose name, till within our own memory,
remained invincible in naval battles, was deprived not only of
a great, aye, of much the greatest part of its usefulness, but
also of its dignity and dominion. We, whose ancei^x^ns con-
quered with our fleets Antiochus the king, and Perses, and in
every naval engagement defeated the Carthaginians, the best
practised and best equipped of aU men in maritime aflfeirs ;
we could now in no place prove ourselves equal to the pirates.
We, who formerly had not only all Italy in safety, but
who were able by the authority ot our empire to secure
the safety of all our aUies in the most distant countries,
so that even the island of Delos, situated so far from us
in the -^gean sea, at which all men were in the habit of
touching with their merchandise and their freights, full
of riches as it was, little and imwalled as it was, still was
in no alarm; we, I say, were cut ofl^ not only from our
provinces, and from the sea-coast of Italy, and from our
harbours, but even from the Appian road ; and at this time,
the magistrates of the Eoman people were not -ashamec^
to come up into this very rostrum where I am "atanding,
which your ancestors had bequeathed to you adorned with
nautical trophies, and the spoils of the er*omy's fleet.
XIX. When you opposed that law, the Roman people, 0
Quintus Hortensius, thought that you, and the others who held
the same opinion with you, delivered your sentiments in a bold
and gallant spirit. But still, in a matter affecting the safety
of the commonwealih, the Roman people preferred consulting
VOL. II. H
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98 OIGEBO'S ORATIONS.
its own feelings of indignation to your authority. Accord-
ingly, one law, one man, and one year, delivered us not only
from that misery and disgrace, but also caused us again
at length to appear really to be the masters of all nations
and countries by land and sea. And on this account the
endeavour to detract, shall I say from Gabinius, ^r from
Pompeius, or (what would be truer still) from both 1 appears
to me particularly unworthy; being done in order that
Aulus Gabinius might not be appointed lieutenant to Cnseus
Pompeius, though he requested and begged it. Is he who
begs for a particular lieutenant in so important a war
unworthy to obtain any one whom he desires, when all
other generals have taken whatever lieutenants they chose, to
assist them in pillaging the allies and plundering the pro-
vinces 1 or ought he, by whose law safety and dignity has
been given to the Roman people, and to all nations, to be
prevented from sharing in the glory of that commander and
that army, which exists through his wisdom and was ap-
pointed at his risk? Was it allowed to Cains Falcidius,
to Quintus Metellus, to Quintus Caelius Laterensis, and to
CnsBus Lentulus, all of whom I name to do them honour, to
be lieutenants the year after they had been tribunes of the
people; and shall men be so exact in the case of Gabinius
a,lone, who, in this war which is carried on imder the pro-
visions of the Gabinian law, and in the case of this com-
mander and this army which he himself appointed with your
assistance, ought to have the first right of any one 1 And
concerning whose appointment as lieutenant I hope that the
consuls wiU bring forward a motion in the senate^; and
if they hesitate, or are imwilling to do so, I undertake to
bring it forward myself; nor, 0 Eomans, shall the hostile
edict of any one deter me from relying on you and defending
your privileges and your kindness. Nor will I listen to any-
thing except the interposition of the tribunes ; and as to that,
those very men who threaten it, will, I apprehend, consider
over and over again what they have a right to do. In my
own opinion, 0 Romans, Aulus Gabinius alone has a right
to be put by the side of Cnseus Pompeius as a partner of
the glory of his exploits in the maritime war ; because the
one, with the assistance of your votes, gave to that man alone
the task of imdertaking that war, and the other, when it was
entrusted to him, undertook it and terminated it.
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DEFENCE OP THE PBOPOSED MANILIAN LAW. 99
XX. It remains for me to speak of the authority and opinion
of Quintus Catulus ; who, when he asked of you, if you thus
placed all your dependence on Cnseus Pompeius, in whom you
would have any hope, if anything were to happen to him, re-
ceived a splendid reward for his own virtue and worth, when
you all, with almost one voice, cried out that you would, in that
case, put your trust in him. In truth he is such a man, that
no affair can be so important, or so dif&cult, that - he cannot
manage it by his wisdom, or defend it by his integrity, or ter-
minate it by hb valour. But, in this case, I entirely differ from
him ; because, the less certain and the less lasting the life of
man is, the more ought the republic to avail itself of the life
and valour of any admirable man, as Jong as the immortal
gods allow it to do so. But let no innovation be established
contrary to the precedents and principles of our ancestors. —
I will not say, at this moment, that our anoeetors in peace
always obeyed usage, but in war were always guided by ex-
pediency, and always accommodated themselves with new
plans to the new emergencies of the times. I will not say
that two most important wars, the Punic war and the Spanidi
war, were put an end to by one general; that two most power-
ful cities, which threatened the greatest danger to this empire-
Carthage and Numantia, were destroyed by the same Scipio.
I will not remind you that it was but lately determined by
you and by your ancestors, to rest all the hopes of the empire
on Caius Marius, so that the same man conducted the war
against Jugurtha, and against the Cimbri, and against the
Teutones. But recollect, in the case of Cnseus Pompeius
himself, with reference to whom Catulus objects to having any
nhw regulations introduced, how many new laws have been
made with the most willing consent of Quintus Catulus.
XXI. For what can be so unprecedented as for a yoimg
man in a private capacity to levy an army at a most critical
time of the republic f He levied one. — To command it ? He
did command it. — To succeed gloriously in his undertaking?
He did succeed. What can be so entirely contrary to usage, as
for a very young man, whose age * fell far short of that required
* " As regards the age at which a person might become a senator,
we have no express statement for the time of the republic, although it
appears to have been fixed by some custom or law, as the cBtassenatoria
is frequently mentioned, especially during the latter period of the
republic ; but we may by induction discover the probable age. We know
that according to the law of the tribune Yillius the age fixed for the
h2
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100 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
for the rank of a senator,, to have a command and an army
emrusted to him 1 to have Sicily committed to his care, and
Afinca, and the war which was to be carried on there ? He
conducted himself in these provinces with singular blameless-
ness, dignity, and valour ; he terminated a most serious war
in Africa, and brought away his army victorious. But what
was . ever so xmheard-of as for a Roman knight to have a
triumph 1 But even that circumstance the Roman people not
only saw, but they thought that it deserved to be tluronged to
and honoured with all possible zeal. What was ever so un-
usual, as, when there were two most gallant and most illus-
trious consuls, for a Roman knight to be sent as proconsul to
a most important and formidable war 1 He was so sent — on
which occasion, indeed, when some one in the senate said
that a private individual ought not to be sent as proconsul,
Lucius Philippus is reported to have answered, that if ho had
his will he should be sent not for one consul, but for both the
consuls. Such great hope was entertained that the affairs of the
republic would be prosperously managed by him, that the charge
which properly belonged to the two consuls was entrusted to
the valour of one young man. What was ever so extraor-
dinary as for a man to be released from all laws by a formal
resolution of the senate, and made consul before he was of an
age to undertake any other magistracy according to the lawsl
What could be so incredible, as for a Roman kaight to cele-
brate a second triumph in pursuance of a resolution of the
senate 1 All the unusual circumstances which in the memory
of man have ever happened to all other men put together, are
not so many as these which we see have occurred in the his-
tory of this one man. And all these instances, numerous,
important, and novel as they are, have all occurred in the
case of the same man, taking their rise in the authority of
Quintus Catulus himself, and by that of other most honour-
able men of the same rank
XXII. Wherefore, let them take care that it is not con-
sidered a most unjust and intolerable thing, that their
authority in matters affecting the dignity of Cnaeus Pompeius
quaBBtorBhip was thirty-one. Now as it might happen that a quaestor
was made a senator immediately after the expiration of his office, we
may presume that the earliest age at which a man could become
a senator was thirty-two. Augustus at last fixed the senatorial age at
twenty-five, which appears to have remained unaltered throughout the
time of the empire." — Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 851, v. Senatus.
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DEFENCE 09 THE PROPOSED HANILIAN LAW. 101
Bhould hitherto have been constantly approved of by you,
but that your judgment, and the authority of the Boman
people in the case of the same man, should be disregarded by
them. Especially when the Boman people can now> of its own
right, defend its own authority with respect to this man
against all who dispute it, — because, when those very same,
men objected, you chose him alone of all men to appoint to
the management of the war against the pirates. If you did
this at random, and had but little regard for the interests of
the republic, then they are right to endeavour to guide your
party spirit by their wisdom; but if you at that time showed
more foresight in the afiGEors of the state than they did ; if
you, in spite of their resistance, by yourselves conferred
dignity on the empire, safety on the whole world ; then at
last let those noble men confess that both they and all other
men must obey the authority of the universal Boman people.
And in this Asiatic and royal war, not only is that military
valour required, which exists in a singular degree in Cnseus
Pompeius, but many other great virtues of mind are also
demanded. It is difficult for your commander-in-chief in
Asia, Cilicia^ Syria, and all the kingdoms of the inland
nations, to behave in such a manner as to think of nothing
else but the enemy and glory. Then, even if there be some
men moderate and addicted to the practice of modesty and
self-government^ still, such is the multitude of covetous and
licentious men, that no one thinks that these are such men.
It is difficult to tell you, 0 Bomans, how great our impopu-
larity is among foreign nations, on accoimt of the injurious
and licentious beh3.vioiur of those whom we have of late years
sent among them with military command. For, in all those
countries which are now under our dominion, what temple
do you think has had a sufficiently holy reputation, what
city has been sufficiently sacred, what private house has
been sufficiently closed and fortified, to be safe from themi
They seek out wealthy and splendid cities to find pretence for
maHng war on them for the sake of plundering them. I would
willingly argue this with those most eminent and illustrious
men, Quintus Catulus and Quintus Hortensius ; for they
know the distresses of the allies, they see their calamities,
they hear their complaints. Do you think that you are send-
ing an army in defence of your allies against their enemies, or
rather, imder pretence of the existence of enemies, against
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102 Cicero's obations.
your allies and friends themselves 1 What city is there in
Asia which can stand the ferocity and arrogance, I will not
say of the army, of a commander-in-chief, or of a lieutenant,
but of even the brigade of one single military tribune?
XXIII. So that even if you have any one who may appear
able to cope in terms of advantage with the king's armies,
still, unless he be also a man who cap. keep his hands, and
eyes, and desires from the treasures of the allies, from their
wives and children, from the ornaments of their temples and
cities, from the gold and jewels of the king, he will not be a
fit person to be sent to this Asiatic and royal war. Do you
think that there is any city there peacefully inclined towards
us which is rich ? Do you think that there is any rich city
there, which will appear to those men to be peacefully in-
clined towards us? The sea-coast, 0 Romans, begged for
Cnseus Pompeius, not only on account of his renown for
military achievements, but also because of the moderation of
his disposition. For it saw that it was not the Roman
people that was enriched every year by the public money, but
only a few individuals, and that we did nothing more by the
name of our fleets beyond sustaining losses, and so covering
ourselves with additional disgrace. But now, are these men,
who think that all these honomrs and offices are not to be con-
ferred on one person, ignorant with what desires, with what
hope of retrieving paat losses, and on what conditions, these
men go to the provinces ? As if Cnsous Pompeius did not
appear great in our eyes, not only on account of his own posi-
tive virtues, but by a comparison with the vices of others.
And, therefore, do not you doubt to entrust everything to
him alone, when he has been foimd to be the only man for
many years whom the allies are glad to see come to their
cities with an army. And if you think that our side of the
argument, 0 Romans, should be confirmed by authorities, you
have the authority of Publius Servilius, a man of the greatest
skill in all wars, and in affairs of the greatest importance, who
has performed such mighty achievements by land and sea,
that, when you are deliberating about war, no one's authority
ought to have more weight with you. You have the authority
of Caius Curio, a man who has received great kindnesses from
you, who has performed great exploits, who is endued with the
highest abilities and wisdom ; and of Cnseus Lentulus, in
whom all of you know there w (as, indeed, there ought to be.
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104 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
guised, which I never need have incurred, and which yet
will not be mischievous to you. But I have considered that
I, invested with my present honours, and loaded with so many
kindnesses from you, ought to prefer your inclination, and the
dignity of the republic, and the safety of our provinces and
alliesf, to all considerations of my own private interest
THE SPEECH OP M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OP AULUS
CLUENTIUS AVITUS.
THB ABGVMBHT.
Aulas Claentlus, a Boman knight of great riches, was accused before the
prtetor oi haying poisoned his father-in-law, Oppianicus, who a few
years previously had been tried and banished for an attempt to
poison Cluentius. PorOppianicus had murdered Kelinus, the former
husband of Sassia, the mother of Cluentius, and married her, and
finding that if Cluentius were dead his property would all come to his
mothtir, endeavoured to poison him, but was detected and convicted.
After his conviction, Lucius Qointius, a tribune of the people, who
had defended him on his trial, endeavoured at all times to excite
odium against Cluentius, saying that he had procured the conviction
of Oppianicus' by bribery, though in point of fact Oppianicus him-
self had employed large sums in endeavours to bribe his judges,
and Staltnus and others had been convicted of being parties to
the corruption. In the fifth year of his exile Oppianicus died, and
a prosecution was instituted against Cluentius oy Sassia, his own
mother ; saying that he had poisoned Oppianicus by the agency of a
man of the name of Marcus Asellius. Cluentius was acquitted. This
happened three years before this present trial. But now Sassia^
having married her daughter to the young Oppianicus, urged him to
institute fresh proceedings against Cluentius. So he prosecuted him
afresh. His counsel was Lucius Attius, and the cause was tried before
Quintus Yocontius Naso, in the consulship of Marcus iBmilius
Lepidus and Lucius Volcatius TuUus, ▲.n.o. 68B.^ Cluentius was
acquitted.
I. I HAVB observed, 0 judges, that the whole speech of the
accuser is divided into two parts, one of which appeared
to me to rely upon, and to put its main trust in, the in-
veterate impopukrity of the trial before Junius ;* the other,
just for the sake of usage, to touch very lightly and diffidently
> Manutius makes a mistake in fixing this consulship of Lepidus and
TuUus, and by consequence, the delivery of this oration, one year earliec
> Junius had been tiie judige in the tnal of Oppianicus. See c. xzvii.
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JfOB A. CLUBNTIUa 105
on the method pursued in cases of accusations of poisoning ;
concerning which matter this form of trial is appointed by
law. Andf therefore, I have determined to preserve the same
division of the subject in my defence, speaking separately to
the question of unpopularity and to that of the accusation, in
order that ^very one may understand that I neither wish
to evade any point by being silent with respect to it, nor to
make anything obscure by speaking of it. But when I con-
eider how much pains I must take with each branch of the
question, one division — that, namely, which is the proper
subject of your inquiry, the question of the feet of the
poisoning — appears to me a very short one, and one which
is not likely to give occasion to any great dispute. But with
the other division, which, properly, is almost entirely uncon-
nected with the case, and which is better adapted to assem-
blies in a state of seditious excitement, than to tranquil and
orderly courts of justice, I shall, I can easily see, have a great
deal of difficulty in dealing, and a great deal of trouble.
But in all this embarrassment, 0 judges, this thing still con-
soles me, — ^that you have been accustomed to hear accusa-
tions under the idea that you will afterwards hear their
refutation from the advocate; that you are bound not to give
the defendant more advantages towards ensuring his acquittal^
than his coimsel can procure for him by clearing him of the
charges brought against him, and by proving his innocence in
his speech. But as regards the odium into which they seek
to bring him, you ought to deliberate together, considering
not what is said by us, but what ought to be said. For
while we are dealing with the accusations, it is only the safety
of Aulus Cluentius that is at stake ; but by the odimn sought
to be excited against him, the common safety of all men
is imperilled. Accordingly, we will treat one (Uvision of the
case as men who are giving you information, and the other
division, as men who are addressing entreaties to you. In
the first division we must beg of you to give us your dili-
gent attention ; in the second, we must implore the protection
of your good feith. There is no one who can withstand
the popukr feeling when excited against him without the
assistance of you and of men like you. As fer as I myself
am concerned, I hardly know which way to turn. Shall
I deny that there is any ground for the disgraceful ao;
cusation, — that the judges were corrupted at tiie previbut-
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106 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
trial ? Shall I deny that that matter has been agitated at
assemblies of the people? that it has been brought before
thef courts of justice? that it has been mentioned in the
senate ? Can I eradicate that belief from men's minds ? a
belief so deeply implanted in them — so long established. It
is out of the power of my abilities to do so. It is a matter
requiring your aid, 0 judges ; it becomes you to come to the
assistance of the innocence of this man attacked by such
a ruinous calumny, as you would in the case of a destructive
fire or of a general conflagration.
II. Indeed, as in some places truth appears to have but
little foundation to rest upon, and but little vigour, so in this
place unpopularity arising on false grounds ought to be
powerless. Let it have sway in assemblies, but let it be
overthrown in courts of justice ; let it influence the opinions
and conversation of ignorant men, but let it be rejected
by the dispositions of the wise; let it make sudden and
violent attacks, but when time for examination is given, and
when the facts are ascertained, let it die away. Lastly, let
that definition of impartial tribunals which has been handed
down to us from our ancestors be still retained ; that in them
crimes are punished without any regard being had to the
popularity or unpopularity of the accused party; and un*
popularity is got rid of without any crime being supposed to
have been ever attached to it. And, therefore, 0 judges,
I beg this of you before I begin to speak of the cause itself;
in the first place, as is most reasonable, that you will bring no
prejudice into court with you. In truth, we shall lose not
only the authority, but even the name of judges, imless
we judge from the facts which appear in the actual trials,
and if we bring into court with us minds already made
up on the subject at home. In the second place, I beg of
you, if you have already adopted any opinion in your minds,
that if reason shall eradicate it, — ^if my speech shall shake
it, — if, in short, truth shall wrest it from you, you will not
resist, but will dismiss it from your minds, if not willingly,
at all events, impartially. I beg you, also, when I am
speaking to each particular point, and efikcing any impression
my adversary may have made, not silently to let your
thoughts dwell on the contrary statement to mine, but to
va^t to the end, and allow me to maintain the order of
^y^arguments which I propose to myself; and when I have
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FOB A. OLUENnUS. 107
gummed np, then to consider in your minds whether I have
passed over anything.
III. I, 0 judges, am thoroughly aware that I am under-
taking a cause which has now for eight years together been
constantly discussed in a spirit opposed to the interests of
my client, and which has been almost convicted and con-
demned by the silent opinion of men ; but if any god will
only incline your good-will to listen to me patiently, I will
show ycM that there is nothing which a man has so much
reason to dread as envy,— that when he has incurred envy,
there is nothing so much to be desired by an innocent man as
an impartial tribunal, because in this alone can any end and
termination be foimd at last to imdeserved disgrace. Where-
fore, I am in very great hope, if I am able fully to imravel all
the circumstances of this case, and to eifect all that I wish
by my speech, that this place, and this bench of judges before
whom I am pleading, which the other side has expected to be
most terrible and formidable to Aulus Cluentius, will be
to him a harbour at last, and a refuge for the hitherto miser-
able and tempest-tost bark of his fortunes. Although there
are many things which seem to me necessary to be mentioned
respecting the common dangers to which all men are exposed
by unpopularity, before I speak about the cause itself; still,
that I may not keep your expectations too long in suspense
by my speech, I will come to the charge itself, only begging
yen, 0 judges, as I am aware I must frequently do in the
course of this trial, to listen to me, as if this cause were now
being this day pleaded for the first time, — as, jn fact, it is; and
not as if it had already been often discussed and proved.
For on this day opportunity is given us for the first time
of efiacing that old accusation ; up to this time mistake and
odium have had the principal influence in the whole cause.
Wherefore, while I reply with brevity and clearness to the
accusation of many years standing, I entreat you, 0 judges,
to listen to mq, as I know that you are predetermined to do,
with kindness and attention.
IV. Aulus Cluentius is said to have corrupted a tribunal
with money, in order to procure the condemnation of his inno-
cent enemy, Statins Albius. I will prove, 0 judges, in the first
place, (since that is the principal wickedness charged against
him, and the chief pretext for casting odium upon him, that
an innocent man was condemned through the influence of
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108 CICBRd'S ORATIONS.
money,) that no one was ever brought before a court on
heavier charges, or with more unimpeachable witnesses
against him to prove them. In the second place, that a
previous examination into the matter had been made by the
very same judges who afterwards condemned him, with such
a result that he could not possibly have been acquitted, not
only by them, but by any other imaginable tribunal. When
I have demonstrated this, then I will prove that point which
I am aware is particularly indispensable, that that tribunal
was indeed tampered with, not by Cluentius, but by the party
hostile to Cluentius ; and I will enable you to see clearly in
the whole of that cause what the facts really were — ^what
mistake gave rise to — and what had its origin in the un-
popularity undeservedly stirred up against Cluentius.
The first point is this, from which it may be clearly seen
that Cluentius had the greatest reason to confide in the jus^
tice of his cause, because he came down to accuse Albius
relying on the most certain &cts and unimpeachable wit-
nesses. While on this topic, it is necessary for me, 0 judges,
briefly to explain the accusations of which Albius was con-
victed. I demand of you, O Oppianicus, to believe that I
speak unwillingly of the affair in which your fether was im-
plicated, because I am compelled by considerations of good
faith, and of my duty as counsel for the defence. And, if I
um unable at the present moment to satisfy you of this, yet
I shall have many other opportunities of satisfying you at
some future time ; but unless I do justice to Cluentius now,
I shall have no subsequent opportunity of doing justice to
him. At the same time who is there who can possibly hesi-
tate to speak against a man who has been condemned and is
dead, on behalf of one unconvicted and living, when in the
case of him who is being so spoken against conviction has
taken away all danger of further disgrace, and death all fear
of any fturther pain? and when, on the other hand, no
disaster can happen to that man on behalf of whom one is
speaking, without causing him the most acute feeling and
pain of mind, and without branding his future life with the
greatest disgrace and ignominy ? And that you may under-
stand that Cluentius was not induced to prosecute Oppi-
anicus by a disposition fond of bringing accusations, or by any
fondness for display or covetousness of glory, but by nefarioua
injuries, by daily plots against him, by hazard of his life,
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FOR A. OLUENTIUB. 109
which has been every day set before his eyes, I must go back
a little further to ihe very beginning of the business ; and
I entreat you, 0 judges, not to be weary or indignant at my
doing so— for when you know the beginning, you will much
more easily understand the end.
V. Aulus Cluentius Avitus, this man's feither, 0 judges,
was a man by far the most distinguished for valour, for repu-
tation and for nobleness of birth, not only of the municipality
of Larinum, of which he was a native, but also of aU that dis-
trict and neighbourhood. When he died, in the consulship of
Sylla and Pompeius,^ he l^ft this son, a boy fifteen years old,
and a daughter grown up and of marriageable age, who a
short time after her father's death married Aulus Aurius
Melinus, her own cousin, a youth of the fairest possible repu-
tation, as was then supposed, among his countrymen, for
honour and nobleness. This marriage subsisted with all
respectability and all concord ; when on a sudden there arose
the nefarious lust of an abandoned woman, united not only
with infamy but even with impiety. For Sassia, the mother
of this Avitus, (for she shall be called his mother by me, just
for the name's sake, although she behaves towards him with
the hatred and cruelty of an enemy,) — she shall, I say, be
called his mother; nor wiU I even so speak of her wickedness
and barbarity as to forget the name to which nature entitles
her ; (for the more loveable and amiable the name of mother
is, the more will you think the extraordinary wickedness of
that mother, who for these many years has been wishing her
son dead, and who wishes it now more than ever, worthy of
all possible hatred.) She, then, the mother of Avitus, being
charmed in a most impious matter with love for that young
man, Melinus, her own son-in-law, at first restrained her desires
as she could, but she did not do that long. Presently, she
began to get so furious in her insane passion, she began to be
so hurried away by her lust, that neither modesty, nor chas-
tity, nor piety, nor the disgrace to her family, nor the opinion
of men, nor the indignation of her son, nor the grief of her
daughter, could recal her firom her desires. She seduced the
mind of the young man, not yet matured by wisdom and
reason, with all those temptations with which that early age
can be charmed and allured. Her daughter, who was tor-
mented not only with the conmion indignation which all
^ ▲. u. c. 666. Tventy-two years before Hob time.
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110 CICBBO'S OBATIONS.
women feel at injuries of that sort from their husbands, but
' vrho also was unable to endure the infamous prostitution of her
mother, of which she did not think that she could even com-
plain to any one without committing a sin herself, wished the
rest of the world to remain in ignorance of this her terrible
misfortune, and wasted away in grief and tears in the arms
and on the bosom of Cluentius, her most affectionate brother.
However, there is a sudden divorce, which appeared likely to
bo a consolation for all her misfortunes. Cluentia departs
from Melinus; not unwilling to be released from the inflic-
tion of such injuries, yet not willing to lose her husband.
But then that admirable and illustrious mother of hers began
openly to exult with joy, to triumph in her delight, victorious
over her daughter, not over her lust. Therefore she did not
choose her reputation to be attacked any longer by uncertain
suspicions; she orders that genial bed, which two years before
she had decked for her daughter on her marriage, to be decked
and prepared for herself in the very same house, having driven
and forced her daughter out of it. The mother-in-law marries
the son-in-law, no one looking favourably on the deed, no one
approving it, all foreboding a dismal end to it.
VI. Oh, the incredible wickedness of the woman, and, with
the exception of this one single instance, unheard of since
the world began ! Oh, the unbridled and unrestrained lust !
Oh, the extraordinary audacity of her conduct ! To think
that she did not fear (even if she disregarded the anger of
the gods and the scorn of men) that nuptial night and those
bridal torches I that she did not dread the threshold of that
chamber ! nor the bed of her daughter ! nor those very walls,
the witnesses of the former wedding ! She broke down and
overthrew everything in her passion and her madness ; lust
got the better of shame, audacity subdued fear, mad passion
conquered reason. Her son was indignant at this common
disgrace of his family, of his blood, and of his name. His
misery was increased by the daily complaints and incessant
weeping of his sister ; still he resolved that he ought to do
nothing more himself with reference to his grievous injuries
and the terrible wickedness of his mother, beyond ceasing to
consider her as his mother; lest, if he did continue to behave
to her as if she were his mother, he might be thought not only
to see, but in his heart to approve of, those things which he
could not behold without the greatest anguish of mind.
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FOE A. CLUENTIU8. Ill
You have heard what was the origin of the bad feeling
between him and his mother ; when you know the rest, you
will perceive that I feared this with reference to our cause ;
for, I am not ignorant that, whatever sort of woman a mother
may be, still in a trial in which her son is concerned, it is
scarcely fitting that any mention should be made of the in-
famy of his mother. I should not, 0 judges, be fit to con-
duct any cause, if, when I was employed in warding off danger
fi-om a friend, I were to fail to see this which is implanted and
deeply rooted in the common feelings of all men, and in their
very nature. I am quite aware, that it is right for men not
only to be silent about the injuries which they suffer from their
parents, but even to bear them with equanimity; but I think
that those things which can be borne ought to be borne,
that those things which can be buried in silence ought to be
buried in silence. Aulus Cluentius has seen no calamity in
his whole life, has encountered no peril of death, has feared
no evil, which has not been contrived against, and brought to
bear upon him, from beginning to end, by his mother. But all
these things he would say nothing of at the present moment,
and would allow them to be buried, if possible, in obUvion,
and if not, at all events in silence as far as he is concerned,
but she does these things in such a manner that he is totally
unable to be silent about them; for this very trial, this
danger in which he now is, this accusation which is brought
against him, all the multitude of witnesses which is to appear,
has aU. been provided originally by his mother; is marshalled
by his mother at this present time; and is furthered with all
her wealth and all her influence. She herself has lately
hastened from Larinum to Rome for the sake of destroying
this her son. The woman is at hand, bold, wealthy and
cruel. She has provided accusers; she has trained witnesses;
she rejoices in the mourning garments and miserable appeai*-
ance of Cluentius ; she longs for his destruction ; she would
be willing to shed her own blood to the last drop, if she can
only see his blood shed first. Unless you have all these cir-
cumstances proved to you in the course of this trial, I give
you leave to think that she is unjustly brought before the
court by me now; but if all these things are made as plain
as they are abominable, then you ought to pardon Cluentius
for allowing these things to be said by me ; and you ought
not to pardon me if .1 were silent' under such circumstances.
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112 CI0EB0*8 ORATIONS.
VII. Now I will just briefly relate to you on what charges
Oppianicus was convicted; that you may be able to see clearly
both the constancy of Aulus Cluentius and the cause of this
accusation. And first of all I will show you what was the
cause of the prosecution of Oppianicus; so that you may see
that Aulus Cluentius only instituted it because he was com-
pelled by force and absolute necessity.
When he had evidently taken poison, which Oppianicus,
the husband of his mother, had prepared for him ; and as
this fact was proved, not by conjecture, but by eye-sight, —
by his being caught in the fact; and as there could be no
possible doubt in the case, he prosecuted Oppianicus. With
what constancy, with what diligence he did so, I will state
hereafter; at present I wish you to be aware that he had no
other reason for accusing him, except that this was the only .
method by which he could escape the danger manifestly in-
tended to his life, and the daily plots laid against his existence.
And that you may understand that Oppianicus was accused
of charges from which a prosecutor had nothing to fear, and
a defendant nothing to hope, I will relate to you a fe^ of the
items of accusation which were brought forward at that trial ;
and .when you have heard them, none of you wiU wonder
that Tie should have distrusted his case, and betaken himself
to Stalenus and to bribery.
There was a woman of Larinum, named Dinea, the mother-
in-law of Oppianicus, who had three sons, Marcus Aurius,
Numerius Aurius, and Cneeus Magius, and one daughter,
Magia, who was married to Oppianicus. Marcus Aurius, quite
a young man, having been taken prisoner in the social war at
Asaulum, fell into the hands of Quintus Sergius, a senator,
who was convicted of assassination, and was put by him in
his slaves' prison. But Numerius Aurius, his brother, died,
and left Cnseus Magius, his brother, his heir. Afterwards,
Magia, the wife of Oppianicus, died ; and last of all, that one
who was the last of the sons of Dinea, Gneeus Magius, also
died. He left as his heir that young Oppianicus, the son of
his sister, and enjoined that he should share the inheritance
with his mother Dinea. In the meantime an informant
comes to Dinea, (a man neither of obscure rank, nor uncer-
tain as to the truth of his news,) to tell her that her sou
Marcus Aurius is alive, and is in the territory of Gaul, in
slavery* The woman, having lost her children, when the
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FOB A. CLUENTIXTB. 113
hope of recovering one of her sons was held out to her, silm-
moned all her relations, and all the intimate Mends of her
son, and wi^ tears entreated them to undertake the business^
to seek out the youth, and to restore to her that son whom
fortune had willed should be the only one remaining to her
out of many. Just when she had begun to adopt these
measures, she was taken ill. Therefore she made a will in
these terms : she left to that sou four hundred thousand ses-
terces; and she made that Oppianicus who has been already
mentioned, her grandson, her heir. And a few days after, she
died. However, these relations, as they had undertaken to
do while Dinea was alive, when she waa dead, wemt into the
Gallic territory to search out Aurius, with the same man who
had brought Dinea the information.
VIII. In the meantime, Oppianicus being, as you will have
proved to you by many circumstances, a man of singular
wickedness and audacity, by means of some Gaul, his inti-
mate friend, first of all corrupted that informer with a bribe,
and after that, at no great expense, managed to have Aurius
himself gpt out of the way and murdered. But they who
had gone to seek out and recover their relation, send letters to
Larinum, to the Aurii, the relations of that young man, and
their own intimate Mends, to say that the investigation was
very dif&cult for them, because they understood that the man
who had given the information had been since bribed by
Oppianicus. And these letters Aulus Aurius, a brave and
experienced man, and one of high rank in his own city, the
near relation of the missing Marcus Aurius, read openly
in the forum, in the hearing of plenty of people, in the
presence of Oppianicus himself, and with a loud voice de-
clared that he would prosecute Oppianicus if he found that
Marcus Aurius had been murdered. The feelings, not only
of his relations, but also of all the citizens of Larinum, are
moved by hatred of Oppianicus, and pity for that young
man. . Therefore, when Aulus Aurius, he who had previously
made this declaration, began to follow the man with loud
cries and with threats, he fled from Larinum, and betook
himself to the camp of that most illustrious man, Quintus
Metellus. After that flight, the witness of his crime, and of
his consciousness of it, he never ventured to commit himself
to the protection of a court of justice, or of the laws, — he
never dared to trust himself unarmed among his enemies; but
VOL. n. I
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114 OIOBRO'S ORATIOKB.
at the time when violence was stalking abroad, after the
victory of Lucius Sylla, he came to Larinum with a body
of armed men, to the great alarm of all the citizens ; he
carried off the quatuorviri,' whom the citizens of that muni-
cipality had elected ; he said that he and three others had
been appointed by Sylla ; and he said that he received orders
from him to take care that that Aurius who had threatened
him with prosecution and with danger to his life, and
the other Aurius, and Caius Aurius his son, and Sextus
Vibius, whom he was said to have employed as his agent
in corrupting the man who had given the information, were
proscribed and put to death. Accordingly, when they had
been most cruelly murdered, the rest were all thrown into no
slight fear of proscription and death by that circumstance.
When these things had been made manifest at the trial, who
is there who can think it possible that he should have been
acquitted?
IX. And these things are trifles. Listen to what follows,
and you will wonder, not that Oppianicus was at last con-
demned, but that he remained for some time in safety.
In the first place, remark the audacity of the man. He
was anxious to marry Sassia, the mother of Avitus, her whose
husband, Aulus Aurius, he had murdered. It is hard to say
whether he who wished such a thing was the more impudent,
or she who consented was the more heartless. However,
remark the humanity and virtue of both of them. Oppianicus
asks, and most earnestly entreats Sassia to marry him. But
she does not marvel at his audacity,— does not scorn and
reject his impudence, she is not even alarmed at the idea
of the house of Oppianicus, red with her husband's blood ;
but she sajrs that she has a repugnance to this marriage,
because he has three sons. Oppianicus, who coveted Sassia's
money, thought that he must seek at home for a remedy for
that obstacle which was opposed to his marriage. For as he
had an infent son by Novia, and as a second son of his, whom
he had had by Papia, was being brought up under his
mother's eye at Teanum in Apulia, which is about eighteen
* ** The highest magistrates of a colonia were the dauraviri or qiiatnor-
riri, 80 called as the numbers might vary, whose functions may be
compAred with those of the ^consulate at Rome, before the establishment
of the prsBtorship. Their principal duties were the administration of
justice.*'— Smith, Diet. Ant. p 269, v. Colonia.
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POR A. 0LUENTII7S. 115
miles from Larinum, on a sudden, without alleging any
reason, he sends for the boy from Teanum, which he had pre-
viously never been accustomed to do, except at the time of
the pubHo games, or on days of festival His miserable
mother, suspecting no evil, sends him. He pretended to set
out himself to Tarentum ; and on that very day the boy,*
though at the eleventh hour he had been seen in pubhc in
good health, died before night, and the next day was burnt
* before daybreak. And common report brought this miserable
news to his mother before any one of Oppianicus's household
brought her news of it. She, when she had heard at one
and the same time, that she was deprived not only of her son,
but even of the sad office of celebrating his frineral rites,
came instantly, half dead with grief, to Larinum, and there per-
forms funeral obsequies over again for her already buried son.
Ten days had not elapsed when his other infant son is also
murdered ; and then Sassia i^^amediately marries Oppianicus, .
rejoicing in his mind, and feeling confident of the attainment
of his hopes. No wonder she married him, when she saw him
so eager to propitiate her, not with ordinary nuptial gifts, but
with the deaths of his sons. So that other men are often
covetous of money for the sake of their children, but that
man thought it more agreeable to lose his children for the
sake of money.
X. I see, 0 judges, that you, as becomes your feelings
of humanity, are violently moved at these enormous crimes
now briefly related by me. What do you think must have been
their feelings who had not only to hear of these wicked deeds,
but also to sit in judgment on them 1 You are hearing of
a man, in whose case you are not the judges,^-of a man whom
you do not see,— of a man whom you now can no longer hate,
—of a man who has made atonement to nature and to the laws,
whom the laws have punished with banishment, nature with
death. You are hearing of these actions, not from any enemy,
you are hearing of them without any witnesses being pro-
duced; you are hearing of them when those things which
might be enlarged upon at the greatest length are stated
by me in a brief and summary manner. They were hearing
of the actions of a man with reference to whom they were
Dound to deliver their judgment on oath,— of a man who was
present, whose in&mous and hardened countenance they were
looking upon,— of a man whom they hated on account of hJ9
l2
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116 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
audacity,^-of him wliom they thought worthy of every pos-
sible punishment. They were hearing the relation of these
crimes from his accusers ; they were hearing the statements
of many witnesses ; they were hearing a serious and long
oration on each separate particular from Publius Canutius, a
most eloquent man. And is there any man who, when he has
become acquainted with these things, can suspect that Oppi-
anicus was taken im&ir advantage of, and cru^ed at his trial,
though he was innocent 1 I will now mention all the other
things in a Imnp, 0 judges, in order to come to those things
which are nearer to, and more immediately connected with,
this cause.
I entreat you to recollect that it was no part of my original
intention to bring any accusation against Oppianicus, now that
he is dead; but that as I wish to persuade you that the
tribunal was not bribed by my client, I use this as the
beginning and foimdation of my defence, — that Oppianicus
was condemned, being a most guilty and wicked man. He
himself gave a cup to his own wife Cluentia, who was the
aunt of that man Avitus, and she while drinking it cried out
that she was dying in the gi*eatest agony ; and she lived
no longer than she was speaking, for she died in the middle
of this speech and exclamation. And besides the suddenness
of this death, and the exclamation of the dying woman,
everything which is considered a sign and proof of poisor
was discovered in her body after she was dead.
XI. And by the same poison he killed Caius Oppianicus
his brother, — and even this was not enough. Although in
the murder of his brother no wickedness seems to have been
omitted, still he prepared beforehand the road by which
he was to arrive at his abominable crime by other acts of
wickedness. For, as Auria, his brother's wife, was in the
feimily way, and appeared to be near the time of her confine-
ment, he murdered her also with poison, so that she and his
own brother's child, whom she bore within her, perished at the
same time. After that he attacked his brother ; who, when
it was too late, after he had drank that cup of death, and
when he was uttering loud exclamations about his own and
his wife's death, and was desirous to alter his will, died during
the actual expression of this intention. So he murdered the
woman, that he might not be cut off from his brother's
inheritance by her confinement ; and he deprived his brother's
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FOR A. OLUENTHIS. 117
children of life before they were able to receive from nature
the light which was intended for them ; so as to give every
one to understand that nothing could be protected against
him, that nothing was too holy for him, from whose audacity
even the protection of their mother's body had been imable to
preserve his own brother's children.
I recollect that a certain Milesian woman, when I was in
Asia, because she had by medicines brought on abortion,
having been bribed to do so by the heirs in reversion, was
convicted of a capital crime ; and rightly, inasmuch as she
had destroyed the hope of the Mher, the memory of his name,
the supply of his race, the heir pf his family, a citizen intended
for the use of the republic. How much severer punishment
does Oppianicus deserve for the same crime 1 For she, by
doing this violence to her person, tortured her own body ; but
he effected this same crime through the torture and death of
another. Other men do not appear to be able to commit
many atrocious murders on one individual, but Oppianicus has
been found clever enough to destroy many lives in one body.
XII. Therefore when Cnaeus Magius, the uncle of that young
Oppianicus, had become acquainted with the habits and auda-
city of this man, and, being stricken with a sore disease, had
made him, his^sister's son, his heir, simimoning his friends, in
the presence of his mother Dinea, he asked his wife whether
she was in the family way ; and when she said that she was,
he begged of her after his death to live with Dinea, who was
her mother-in-law, till she was confined, and to take great
care to preserve and to bring forth alive the child that she had
conceived. Accordingly, he leaves ^her in his wiU a large sum,
which she was to receive from his child if a child was bom,
but leaves her nothing from the reversionary heir. You see
what he suspected of Oppianicus; what his opinion of him was
is plain enough. For though he left his son his heir, he did
not leave him guardian to his children. Now, leam what
Oppianicus did ; and you will see that Magius, when dying,
had an accurate foresight of what was to happen. The money
which had been left to her from her child if any was bom,
that Oppianicus paid to her at once, though it was not due ;
if, ind^, it is to be called a payment of a legacy, and not
wages for procuring abortion ; and she, having received that
sum, and many ot^er presents besides, which were read out of
the codicils of Oppianicus's will, being subdued by avarice, sold
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118 OIOBBO'S ORATIONS.
to the wickedness of Oppianicus that hope which she had in
her womb, and which had been so commended to her care by
her husband. It would seem now that nothing could possibly
be added to this wickedness : listen to the end. — The woman
who, according to the solemn request of her husband, ought
not for ten months to have ever entered any house but that of
her mother-in-law ; five months after her husband's death
married Oppianicus himself. But that marriage did not last
long, for it was entered into, not with any regard to the dignity
of wedlock, but from a partnership in wickedness.
XIII. What more skdl I say ? How notorious, while the
fitct was recent, was the murder of Asinius of Larinum, a
wealthy young man ! how much talked about in every one's
conversation ! There was a man of Larinum of the name of
Avilius, a man of abandoned character and great poverty, but
exceedingly skilful in rousing and gratifying the passions of
young men; and as by his attentions and obsequiousness
he had wormed himself into the acquaintance of Aanius, Op-
pianicus began forthwith to hope, that by means of this Avilius,
as if he were an instrument applied for the purpose, he might
catch the youth of Asinius, and take his father s wealth from
him by storm. The plan was devised at Larinum ; the ac-
complishment of it was transferred to Eome. For they thought
that they could lay the foimdations of that design more eaealy
in solitude, but that they could accomplish a deed of the
sort more conveniently in a crowd. Asinius went to Rome
with Avilius ; Oppianicus followed on their footsteps. How
they spent their time at Eome, in what revels, in what scenes
of debauchery, in what immense and extravagant expenses,
not only with the knowledge, but even with the company and
assistance of Oppianicus, would take me a long while to tell,
especially as I am hurrying on to other topics. Listen to the
end of this pretended friendship. When the young man was
in some woman's house, and passing the night there, and
staying there also the next day, Avilius, as had been arranged^
pretends that he is taken iU, and wishes to make his wiU —
Oppianicus brings witnesses to sign it, who knew neither Asi-
nius nor Avilius, and calls him Adnius; and he himself
departs, after the will has been signed and sealed in the name
of Asinius. Avilius gets well immediately. But Asinius in
a very short time is slain, being tempted out to some sand-
pits outside the Esquiline gate, by the idea that he was being
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VOB A. OLUBNTIUS. 119
taken to some villa. And after he had been missed a day or
two, and could not be found in those places in which he was
usually to be sought for, and as Oppianicus was constantly
saying in the forum at Larinum that he and his friends had
lately witnessed his will, the freedmen of Asinius and some
of his friends, because it was notorious that on the last day
that Asinius had been seen, Avilius had been with him, and
had been seen with him by many people, proceed against him,
and bring him before Quintius Mmiilius, who at that time was
a triimivir.* And Avilius at once, without any witness or any
informer appearing against him, being agitated by the con-
sciousness of his recent wickedness, relates everything as I
have now stated it, and confesses that Asinius had been mur-
dered by him according to the plan of Oppianicus. Oppia-
nicus, while lying concealed in his own house, is dragged out
by Manilius ; AviHus the informer is produced on the other
side to face him. Why need you inquire what followed 1
Most of you are acquainted with MamHus ; he had never,
from the time he was a child, had any thoughts of honour, or
of the pursuit of virtue, or even of the advantage of a good
character ; but from having been a wanton and profligate buf-
foon, he had, in thQ dissensions of the state, arrived through the
suffrages of the people at that office, to the seat of which he
had often been conducted by the reproaches of the bystanders.
Accordingly he arranges the business with Oppianicus ; he
receives a bribe from him ; he abandons the cause after it was
commenced, and when it was fully proved. And in this trial
of Oppianicus ,the crime committed on Asinius was proved by
many witnesses, and also by the information of Avihus ; in
which, it was notorious that Oppianicus's name was men-
tioned first among the agents ; and yet you say that he was
an unfortunate and an innocent man, convicted by a corrupt
tribunal
XIV. What more? Did not your father, 0 Oppianicus,
beyond all question, murder your grandmother Dinea, whose
heir you are 1 who, when he had brought to her his own phy-
sician, a well-tried man and often victorious, (by whose means
* There were many triumviri, but the triumviri capitales, which are
meant here, were regular magistrates elected by the people; they
succeeded to many of the functions of the quoMtores parricidiif and in
many points they resembled the magistracy of the Eleven at Athens.
Their court appears to have been near the Maenian Colomn. Vide
Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 1009, v. Triumvir
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120 OlOEfto's ORATIONS.
indeed he bad slain many of his enemies,) exclaimed that she
positively would not be attended by that man, through whose
attention she had lost all her Mends. Then immediately he
goes to a man of Ancona, Lucius Clodius, a travelling quack,
who had come by accident at that time to Larinum, and
arranges with him for four hundred sesterces, as was shown at
the time by his account-books. Lucius Clodius, being a man
in a hurry, as he had many more market towns to visit, did
the business oflf-hand, as soon as he was introduced ; he took
the woman off with the first draught he gave her, and did
not stay at Larinum a moment afterwards. When this Dinea
was making her will, Oppianicus, who was her son-in-law,
having taken the papers, effaced the legacies she bequeathed
in it with his finger ; and as he had done this in many places,
after her death, being afraid of being detected by all those
erasures, he had the will copied over again, and had it signed
and sealed with forged seals. I pass over many things on
purpose. And indeed I fear lest I may appear to have said
too much as it is. But you must suppose that he has been
consistent with himself in every other transaction of his life.
All the senators* of Larinum decided that he had tampered
with the public registers of the censors of that city. No
one would have any accoimt with him ; no one would transact
any business with him. Of all the connexions and relations
that he had, no one ever left him guardian to his children.
No one thought him fit to call on, or to meet in the street, or
to talk to, or to dine with. All men shunned him with con-
tempt and hatred, — all men avoided him as some inhuman
and mischievous beast or pestilence. Still, audacious, infa-
mous, guilty as he was, Avitus, 0 judges, would never have
accused him, if he had been able to avoid doing so without
danger to his own life. Oppianicus was his enemy ; still he
was his step-father : his mother was cruel to him and hated
him ; ♦still die was his mother. Lastly, no one was ever so
disinclined to prosecutions as Cluentius was by nature, by
disposition, and by the constant habits of his life. But as he
had this alternative set before him, either to accuse him, as he
1 The term in the original ia decuriones. In the colonies ''the
name of the senate was ordo decurionum, in later times simply ordo or
curia ; the members of it were decuriones or curtcUes. Thus in the later
ages, curia is opposed to senatu-a, the former being the senate of a
colony, and the latter the senate of Borne." — Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 259^
7. dUimia,
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122 OIOBRO'S OBATIONS.
richer, and had lost her son, be put out of the way by him,
with more profit, and with less danger. So now see in what
manner he, being urged on by these desires, endeavoured to
take off Avitus by poison.
XVI. There were two twin brothers of the municipality of
Aletrinum, by name Caius and Lucius Fabricius, men very
like one another in appearance and disposition, but very un-
like the rest of their fellow-citizens; among whom what
imiform respectability pf character, and what consistent and
moderate habits of life prevail, there is not one of you, I
imagine, who is ignorant. Oppianicus was always exceedingly
intimate with these Fabricii. You are all pretty weU aware
what great power in causing friendship a similarity of pursuits
and disposition has. As these two men lived in such a way
as to think no gain discreditable ; as every soi*t of fraud, and
treachery, and cheating of yoimg men was practised by them ;
as they were notorious for every sort of vice and dishonesty,
Oppianicus, as I have said, had cultivated their intimacy for
many years. And accordingly he now resolved to prepare
destruction for Avitus by the agency of Caius Fabricius, for
Lucius had died. Avitus was at that time in delicate health ;
and he was employing a physician of no great reputation, but
a man of tried skUl and honesty, by name Cleophantus, whose
slave, Diogenes, Fabricius began to tamper with, and to in
duce by promises and bribes to give poison to Avitus. The
slave, being a cunning fellow, but, as the affair proved, a vir-
tuous and upright man, did not refuse to listen to Fabricius's
discom-se ; he reported the matter to his master, and Cleo-
phantus had a conference with Avitus. Avitus immediately
communicated the business to Marcus Bebrius, a senator, his
most intimate friend ; and I imagine you all recollect what a
loyal, and prudent, and worthy man he was. His advice was
that Avitus should buy Diogenes of Cleophantus, in order that
the matter might be more easily proved by his information,
or else be discovered to be felsa Not to make a long story
of it, Diogenes is bought in a few days, (when many virtuous
men had secretly been made aware of it,) the poison, and the
money sealed up, which was given for that purpose, is seized
m the hands of Scamander, a freedman of the Fabricii 0
ye immortal gods ! will any one, when he has heard all these
facts, say that Oppianicus was falsely convicted 1
XVII. Who was ever more audacious 1 who was ever more
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FOR A. CLUENTIUS. 123
guilty 1 who was ever brought before a court more manifestly
detected in his guilt ? What genius, what eloquence could
there be, what plea in defence could possibly be devised, which
could stand against this single accusation ? And at the same
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124 CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
Oppianicus. The cause of his designs against Cluentius was
revealed ; his intimacy with the Fabricii was mentioned ; the
way of life and audacity of the man wa^ revealed; in short,
the whole accusation was stated with great firmness and with
varied eloquence, and at last was summed up by the proved
discovery of the poison. Then I rose to reply, with what
anxiety, 0 ye immortal gods ! with what solicitude of mind !
with what fearl Indeed, I am always very nervous when
I begin to speak. As often as I rise to speak, so often do I
think that I am myself on my trial, not only as to my ability,
but also as to my virtue and as to the discharge of my duty;
lest^ I should either seem to have undertaken what I am in-
capable of performing, which is an impudent act, or not to
perform it as well as I can, which is either a perfidious action
or a careless one. But that time I was so agitated, that I was
afraid of everything. I was afraid, if I said nothing, of being
thought utterly devoid of eloquence, and, if I said much in
such a case, of being considered the most shameless of men.
XIX. I recollected myself after a time, and adopted this
resolution, that I must needs act boldly ; that the age which
I was of at that time generally had much allowance made for
it, even if I were to stand by men in danger, though their
cause had but little justice in it And so I acted. I strove
and contended by every possible means, I had recourse to
every possible expedient, to every imaginable excuse in the
case, which I could think of ; so as, at all events, (though I
,am almost ashamed to say it,) no one could think that the
cause had been left without an advocate. But, whatever ex-
cuse I tried to put forth, the prosecutor immediately wrested
out of my hands. If I asked what enmity there was between
Scamander and Avitus, he admitted that there was none. But
he said that Oppianicus, whose agent he had been, had always
been and still was most hostile to Avitua If again I urged
that no advantage would accrue to Scamander by the death
of Avitus; he a(hnitted that, but he said that all the property
of Avitus would come to the wife of Oppianicus, a man who
had had plenty of practice in killing his wivea When I em-
ployed this argument in the defence, which has always been
considered a most honourable one to use in the causes of freed-
men, that Scamander was highly esteemed by his patron ; he
admitted that, but asked, Who hisid any opinion of that patron
himself) When I urged at some length the ailment, that a
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FOR A. CLUENTIUS. 125
plot might have been laid against Scamander by Diogenes, and
that it might have been arranged between them on some other
account that Diogenes should bring him medicine, not poison;
that this might happen to any one ; he asked why he cam©
into such a place as that, into so secret a place, why he came
by himself why he came with a sum of money sealed up.
And lastly, at this point, our cause was weighed down by wit-
nesses, most honourable men. Marcus Bebrius said that Dio-
genes had been bought by his advice, and that he was present
when Scamander was seized with the poison and the money In
his possession. Publius Quintilius Varus, a man of the most
scrupulous honour, and of the greatest authority, said that
Cleophantus had conversed with him about the plots which
were being laid against Avitus, and about the tampering with
Diogenes, while the matter was fresh. And all through that
trial, though we appeared to be defending Scamander, he was
the defendant only in name, but in reality, it was Oppianicus
who was in peril, and who was the object of the whole prose-
cution. Nor, indeed, was there any doubt about it, nor could
he disguise that that was the case. He was constantly present
in court, constantly interfering in the case ; he was exerting
all his zeal and all his influence. And lastly, which was of
great injury to our cause, he was sitting in that very place as
if he were the defendant. The eyes of all the judges were
directed, not towards Scamander, but towards Oppianicus;
his fear, his agitation, his countenance betraying suspense and
uncertainty, his constant change of colour, made all those
things, which were previously very suspicious, palpable and
evident.
XX. When the judges were about to come to their decision,
Caius Jimius, the president, asked the defendant, according to
the provisions of the Cornelian law which then existed, whether
he wished the decision to be come to in his case secretly or
openly. He replied by the advice of Oppianicus, becaase he
said that Junius was an intimate friend of Avitus, that he
wished the decision to be come to secretly. The judges delibe-
rate. Scamander on the first trial was convicted by every
vote except one, which Stalenus said was his. Who in the
whole city was there at that time, who when Scamander was
condemned, did not think that sentence had been passed on
Oppianicus? What point was decided by that conviction,
except that that poison had been procured for the purpose of
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126 OIOEROS ORATIONS.
being given to Avitus ? Moreover, what suspicion of the very
slightest nature attached, or could attach to Scamander, so
that he should be thought to ha^e desired of his own accord
to kill Avitus?
And, now that this trial had taken place, now that Oppi-
anicus was convicted in fact, and in the general opinion of
every one, though he was not yet condemned by any sentence
having been le^ly passed upon him, still Avitus did not at
once proceed criminally against Oppianicus. He wished to
know whether the judges were severe against those men only
whom they had ascertained to have poison in their own pos-
session, or whether they judged the intention and complicity
of others in such crimes worthy of the same punishment
Therefore, he immediately proceeded against Caius Fabricius,
who, on account of his intimacy with Oppianicus, he thought
must have been privy to that crime ; and, on account of the
connexion of the two causes, he obtained leave to have that
cause taken first Then this Fabricius not only did not bring
to me my neighbours and friends the citizens of Aletrinum,
but he was not able himself any longer to employ them as
men eager in his defence, or as witnesses to his character.
For they and I thought it suitable to our humanity to uphold
the cause of a man not entirely a stranger to us, while it was
undecided, though suspicious ; but to endeavour to upset the
y^ decision which had been come to, we should have thought a
deed of great impudence. Accordingly he, being compelled
by his desolato condition and necessity, fled for aid to the
brothers Cepasii, industrious men, and of such a disposition
as to think it an honour and a kindness to have any oppor-
tunity of speaking afforded them.
XXI. Now this is a very shameful thing, that in diseases
of the body, the more serious the complaint is, the more care-
fully is a physician of great eminence and skill sought for ;
but in capiti trials, the worse the case is, the more obscure
and unprincipled is the practitioner to whom men have re-
course. The defendant is brought before the comi;; the cause
is pleaded ; Canutius says but little in support of the accusa-
tion, it being a case, in fact, already decided. The elder
Cepasius begins to reply, in a long exordium, tracing the
facts a long way back. At first his speech is listened to with
attention. Oppianicus began to recover his spirits, having
been before downcast and dejected. Fabricius himself was
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POU A. CLUENTIUS. 12?
delighted. He was not aware that the attention of the
judges was awakened, not by the eloquence of the man, but
by the impudence of the defence. After he began to discuss
the immediate facts of the case, he himself aggravated con-
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128 CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
made their present decision harmonize with their previous
ones. Could they themselves of their own accord rescind
their own judgments, when other men, when giving judgment,
are aocustgmed most especially to take care that their deci-
sions be not at variance with those of other judges? And
could those who had condemned the freedman of Fabricius;
because he had been an agent in the crime, and his patron,
because he had been privy to it, acquit the principal and
original contriver of the whole wickedness? Could those
who, without any previous examination, had condemned the
other men from what appeared in the cause itself, acquit this
man whom they knew to have been already convicted twice
over? Then indeed those decisions of the senatorial bodjr,
branded with no imaginary odium, but with real and con-
spicuous infe.my, covered with disgrace and ignominy, would
have left no room for any defence of them. For what an-
swer could these judges make if any one asked of them,
" You have condemned Scamander ; of what crime? Because,
forsooth, he attempted to murder Avitus by poison, by the
agency of the slave of the doctor. What was Scamander to
gain by the death of Avitus ? Nothing; but he was the agent
of Oppianicus. You have condemned Caius Fabricius ; why
so ? Because, as he himself was exceedingly intimate with
Oppianicus, and as his freedman had been detected in the
very act, it was not proved that he was entirely ignorant of
his design." If, then, they had acquitted Oppianicus himself,
after he had been twice condemned by their own decisions,
who could have endured such infamy on the part of the
tribunals, such inconsistency in judicial decisions, and such
caprice on the part of the judges ?
But if you now clearly see this, which has been long ago
proved by the whole of my speech, that the defendant must
inevitably be condemned by that decision, especially when
brought before the same judges who had made two previous
investigations into the mattor, you must at the same time see
this, that the accuser could have had no imaginable reason
for wishing to bribe the bench of judges.
XXIII. Fco I ask you, 0 Titus Aldus, leaving out of the
question all other arguments, whether you think that the
Fabricii who '^ere condemned were innocent ? whether you
say that those decisions also were corruptly procured by
bribes 1 though in one of those decisions one qf the defendr
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FOR A. OLUENTIUa 129
ants was acquitted by Stalenus alone; in the other, the
defendant, of his own accord, condemned himsel£ Come,
now, if they were guilty, of what crime were they guilty?
Was there any crime imputed to them except the seeking
for poison with which to murder Avitusi Was there any
other point mooted at those trials, except these plots which
were laid against Avitus by Oppianicus, through the in-
strumentality of the Fabricii? Nothing else, you will find;
I say, 0 judges, nothing else. It is fresh in people's memories.
There are public records of the trial Correct me if I am
speaking Msely. Kead the statements of the witnesses. Tell
me, in those trials, what was objected to them, I will not say
as an accusation, but even as a reproach, except this poison of
Oppianicus. . Many reasons can be alleged why it was neces-
sary that this decision should be given; but I will meet
your expectation half-way, 0 judges. For although I am
listened to by you in such a way, that I am persuaded no one
was ever listened to more kindly or more attentively, still
your silent expectation has been for some time calling me in
another direction, and seeming to chide me thus : — " What
then 1 Do you deny that that sentence was procured by corrup-
tion 1" I do not deny that, but I say that the corruption was ,
not practised by my client. By whom, then, was it practised ?
I think, in the first place, if it had been uncertain what waa
likely to be the resiilt of that trial, that still it would have
been more probable that he would have recourse to corrup-
tion, who was afraid of being himself convicted, than he who
was only afraid of another man being acquitted. In the
second place, as it was doubtful to no one what decision must
inevitably be given, that he would employ such means, who
for any reason distrusted his case, rather than he who had
every possible reason to feel confidence in his. Lastly, that
at sdl events, he who had twice failed before those judges
must have been the corrupter, rather than he who had twice
established his case to their sati8fe.ction. One thing is quite
certain. J No one will be so unjust to Cluentius, as not to
grant to me, if it be proved that that tribunal was bribed,
that it was bribed either by Avitus o^ by Oppianicus. If I
prove that it was not bribed by Avitus, I prove that it was by
Oppianicus, — I clear Avitus. Wherefore, although I have
already established plainly enough that the one had no reason
whatever for having recourse to bribery, (and from this alo^e
vol*. II. K
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130 OIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
it follows that the bribery must have been committed by
Oppianicus,) still you shall have separate proofs of this par-
ticular point.
XXIV. And I will adduce those facts as arguments,
which, however, are very weighty ones — namely, that he
was tte briber, who was in danger, — that he was the
briber, who was a&aid, — that he was the briber, who had no
hope of safety by any other means ; he who was always a
man <Jf extraordinary audacity. There are many such argu-
' ments. But when I have a case which is not doubtful, but
open and evident, the enumeration of every separate argu-
ment is superfluous. I say that Statins Albius gave Cains
iEHus Stalenus the judge a large sum of money to influence
his decision. Does any one deny it? I appeal to you,
0 Oppianicus ; to you, 0 Titus Attius ; the one of whom
deplores that conviction wiMi his eloquence, the other with
silent piety. Dare to deny it, if you can, that money was
given by Oppianicus to Stalenus the judge. Deny it---deny
it, I say, where you stand. Why are you silent ? But you
cannot deny it, for you sought to recover what had been paid.
You have admitted it, — ^you have recovered it. With what
fe.ce now do you dare to mention a decision given through
corruption, when you confess that money was given by the
opposite side to the judge before trial, and recovered from him
after the trial ? How, then, were all these things managed 1
1 will go back a little way, 0 judges, and I will explain every-
thing which has lain hid in long obscurity, so that you shall
appear almost to see it with your eyes. I entreat you, as you
have listened to me attentively up to this time, so to listen to
what is to come. In truth, nothing shall be said by me which
shall not seem to be worthy of this assembly and this silence
which is maintained in the court, — ^worthy of your attention
and of your ears.
For when first Oppianicus began to suspect, from the
feet of a prosecution having been instituted against Sca-
mander, what danger he himself was threatened with, he
immediately set himself to work to become intimate with a
man, needy, audacious, a practised agent in the corruption of
tribunals, but at that time himself a judge, Stalenus. And
first of all, when Scamander was the defendant;, he made such
an impression on him by his gifts, and presents, and liberality,
tihiat he showed himself a more eager assistant than the credit
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FOB A. 0LI7ENTIUS. 131
of a judge could stand. But afterwards, when Soamander
had been acquitted by the smgle vote qf Stalenus, but when
the patron of Soamander had not been acquitted even by his
own judgment^ he found that he must provide for his sttfety
by stronger measures. Then he began to request of Stalenucfy
as from a man most acute in contriving, most impudent in
daring, and most intrepid in executing, (for all these qualities he
had in a great degree, and he pretended to have them in a still
greater degree,) assistance to save his credit and his fortunes.
XXV. You are not ignorant, O judges, that even beastfl>
when warned by hunger, usually return to that place where
they have once been fed. That Stalenus, two years before,
when he had imdertaken the cause of the property of
Safinius at Atella, had said that he would bribe the tri-
bunal with six himdred thousand sesterces. But when he had
received this sum from the youth, he embezzled it, and when
the trial was over, he did not restore it either to Safinius or
to the purchasers of the property. But when he had spent
all that money, and had nothing left, not only nothing to
gratify his desires, but nothing even to supply his neces-
sities, he made up his mind that he must return to the same
system of plunder and judicial embezzlement. And, there-
fore, as he saw that Oppianicus was in a desperate way, and
overwhelmed by two previous investigations adverse to him,
he raised him up from his depression with his promises, and
bade him not despair of safety. Oppianicus began to entreat
the man to show him some method of corrupting the tribunal.
But he, as was afterwards heard from Oppianicus himself,
said that there was no one in the city except himself who
could do this. But at first he began to make objections,
because he said that he was a candidate for the sedileship with
men of the highest rank, and that he was afraid of incurring
unpopularity and of giving offence. Afterwards, being pre-
vailed on, he required at first a large sum of money. At last,
he came down to what could be managed, and desired six
hundred and forty thousand sesterces to be sent to his house.
And as soon as this money was brought to him, that most
worthless man immediately began to form and adopt the
following idea, — that nothing could be more advantageous for
his interests than for Oppianicus to be condemned ; because,
if he were acquitted, he must either distribute the money
among the judges, or else restore it to him : but if he were
k2
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132 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
condemned, there would be no one to reclaim it. Therefor^
he contrives a singular plan. And you will the more easily,
0 judges, believe the things which are said by us, if you will
direct your minds back a considerable space, so as to recollect
the way of life and disposition of Caius Stalenus. For accord-
ing to the opinion that is formed of a man's habits do people
conjecture what has or has not been done by him.
XXVI. As he was a man needy, expensive, audacious,
cunning, perfidious, and as he saw so vast a sum of money
laid up in his house, a most miserable and unfurnished re-
ceptacle for it, he began to revolve in his mind every sort
of cunning and fraud. " Must I give it to the judges ? In
that case, what shall I get myself, except danger and infamy?
Can I contrive no means by which Oppianious must be con- _
demned ? Why not ? There is nothing in the world that
cannot be managed somehow. If any chance delivers him
from danger, must I not return the money ? Let us, then,
drive him on headlong, and crush him in utter ruin." He
adopts this plan, — ^he promises some of the most insigni-
ficant of the judges some money ; then he keeps it back,
hoping by this means (as he thought that the respectable
men would, of their own accord, judge with impartiality^ to
make those who were less esteemed funous against Oppiamcus
on account of their disappointment Therefore, as he had
always been a blimdering and a perverse feUow, he b^ns
with Bulbus, and finding him sulky and yawning because he
had got nothing for a long time, he gives him a gentle spur.
*' What will you do," says he, " will you help me, 0 Bulbus,
so that we need not serve the republic for nothing ?" But he,
as soon as he heard this — " For nothing," said he, " I will
follow whenever you like. But what have you got 1" Then
he promises him forty thousand sesterces if Oppianicus ia
acquitted. And he b^ him to summon the rest of those
wifli whom he is accustomed to converse, and he, the con-
triver of the whole business, adds Gutta* to Bulbus. There-
fore, he did not seem at all bitter after the taste he had had
of his discourse. One or two days passed, when the matter
appeared somewhat doubtful He wanted the agent and
1 This is quite untranslateable ; it is a set of puns. Qatta is the name
of one judge, Bnlbos of another; but gutta also means a drop, and
bnlbuB means an onion. He sprinkles a drop on this onion, or he poun
water on the onion to boil it.
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FOR A. CLUBNTIUa 133
some security for the money. Then Bulbus addresses the
man with a cheerful countenance, as caressingly aa he can.
"What will you do," says he, "0 Psetus ? " (For Stalenus had
chosen this surname for himself from the images of the
^lii, lest if he called himself Ligur, he should seem to be
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134 , CIC3EB0S ORATIONS.
other before a judge. Avitus did not mind that, nor did
Canutius. But Oppianicus and his patron Lucius Quintius
were not so well pleased ; and as Lucius Quintiu^ was at that
time a tribune of the people, he reproached Caius Junius the
judge most bitterly, and insisted upon it that they should not
deliberate on their decision without the presence of StaJenus ;
and as they appeared to be purposely rather careless in com-
mimicating with him on the subject by means of the lictors,
he himself went out of the criminal court into the civil
court, where Stalenus was engaged, and, as he had the power
to do, adjourned that court, and himself brought Stalenus
back to the bench. . The judges rise to give decisions, when
Oppianicus said, as he had at that time a right to do, that he
wished the votes to be given openly, his object being that Sta-
lenus might know what was to be paid to each judge. There
were different kinds of judges, a few were bribed, but all were
unfavorable. As men who are accustomed to receive bribes in
the Campus Martius are usually exceedingly hostUe to those
candidates whose money they think is kept back, so the
judges of the same sort were then very indignant against this
defendant. The others considered him very guilty, but they
waited for the votes of those who they thought had been
bribed, that by seeing their votes they might judge who
it was that they had been bribed by.
XXVIII. Behold now — the lots were drawn with such a
result that Bulbus, Stalenus, and Gutta were the first who were
to deliver their opinions. There was the greatest anxiety on
the part of every one to see what vote would be given by these
worthless and corrupt judges. And they all condemn him
without the slightest hesitation. On this, great scruples arose
in men's minds, and some doubt as to what had really beep
done. Then some of the judges, wise men, ti-ained in the old-
feshioned principles of the ancient tribunals, as they could
not acquit a most guilty man, and yet, as they did not like at
once to condemn a man, in whose case there appeared reason
to suspect that bribery had been employed agains£ him, before
they were able to ascertain iiie truth of this suspicion, gave
as their decision, " Not proven." But some severe men,
who made up their minds that regard ought to be had to the
intention with which a thing was done by any one, although
they believed that others had only given a correct decision
through the influence of bribery, nevertheless thought that it
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FOR A. OLUBNTIUS. 135v
behoved them to decide consistently with their previous deci-
sions. Accordingly, they condemned him. There were five
in all, who, whether they did so out of ignorance, or out of
pity, or from being influenced by some secret suspicion, or
by some latent ambition, acquitted that innocent Oppianicus
of yours altogether.
After Oppianicus had been condemned, immediately Lucius
Quintius, an excessive seeker after popularity, who was ac-
customed to catch at every wind of report, and at every word
uttered in the assemblies, thought that he had an opportunity
of rising himself, by exciting odium against the senators ;
because he thought that the decisions of that body were
already falling into disfavour in the eyes of the people. One
or two assemblies are held, very violent and stormy : a tribune
of the people kept loudly asserting that the judges had taken
money to condemn an innocent prisoner : he kept saying,
that lie fortunes of all men were at stake ; that there were no
courts of justice ; that no one could be safe who had a wealthy
enemy. Men ignorant of the whole business, who had never
even seen Oppianicus, and who thought that a most virtuous
citizen, that a most modest man had been crushed by money,
being exasperated by this suspicion, began to demand that the
whole matter should be brought forward and inquired into,
and in fact, to require an investigation of the whole business;
and at that very time Stalenus, having been sent for by Op-
pianicus, came by night to the house of Titus Annius, a most
honourable man, and a most intimate friend of my own.
By this time the whole business is known to every one ; —
what Oppianicus said to him about the money; how he said
that he would restore the money ; how respectable men heard
the whole of their conversation, having been placed in a secret
place with that view ; how the whole matter was laid open,
and mentioned pubhcly in the forum, and how all the money
was extorted from and compelled to be restored by Stalenus.
XXIX. The character of this Stalenus, already known to
and thoroughly ascertained by the people, was such as to
make no suspicion unnatural ; still, those who were present in
the assembly did not imderstand that the money which he
had promised to pay on behalf of the defendant, had been
kept back by him. — For this they were not told. They were
aware that reports of bribery had been at work in the court
of justice ; they heard that a defendant had been condemned
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136 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
who was innocent; they saw that he had been condemned by
Stalenns's vote. They judged, because they knew the man,
that it had not been done for nothing. A similar suspicion
existed with respect to Bulbus, and Gutta, and some others.
Therefore, I confess, (for I may now make the confession
with impunity, especially in tins place,) that not only the
habits of life of Oppianicus, but that even his name was un-
known to the people before that trial. Moreover that, as it
did seem a most scandalous thing for an innocent man to have
been crushed by the influence of money ; and as the general
profligacy of Stalenus, and the baseness of some others of the
judges who resembled him, increased this suspicion ; and as
Lucius Quintius pleaded his cause, a man not only of the
greatest influence, but also of exceeding skill in arousing the
feelings x)f the multitude ; by these circumstances a very great
degree of suspicion was excited against, and a very great de-
gree of odium attached to that tribunal. And I recollect, that
Caius Junius, who had presided over that trial, was thrown, as it
were, into the fresh fire ; and that he, a man of sedilitian
rank, who was already praetor in the universal opinion of all
men, was driven out of the forum and even out of the city,
not by any regular discussion, but by the outcry raised
against him by all men.
And I am not sorry that T am defending the cause of
Aulus Cluentius at this time rather than at that time. For
the cause remains the same, and cannot by any means be
altered ; the violence of the times, and the unpopularity then
stirred up, has passed away ; so that the evil that existed in
the time is now no injury to us, the good which there was in
the cause is still advantageous to us. And, therefore, I per-
<5eive now how attentively I am listened to, not only by those
to whom the judgment and the power of deciding belongs,
but even by those whose influence is confined to their mere
opinion. But if at that time I had been speaking, I should
not have been listened to : not that the circumstances were
different ; they are exactly the same ;*but because the time
was different — and of that you may feel quite sure.
XXX. Who at that time could have dared to say that
Oppianicus had been condemned because he was guilty 1 who
now ventures to deny it ? Who at that time could have ven-
tured to assert that Oppianicus had endeavoured to corrupt
the bench of judges with money 1 at the present time who is
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FOR A. CLUENTIUa 137
there who can d6ny it ? Who, at that time, would have been
suffered to mention that Oppianicus was prosecuted, after
having been ah'eady condenmed by two previous investiga-
tions ? who is there at the present time who can attempt to
invalidate this statement ? Wherefore, all party feeling being
now out of the question, for time has removed that, my oration
has begged you to dismiss it from your minds, and your good
faith and justice has discarded it from an inquiry into truth ;
what is there besides in the cause that remains in doubt ?
It is perfectly notorious that bribery was practised or
attempted at that trial The question is. By whom was it
practised; by the prosecutor, or by the defendant 1 The
prosecutor says, " In the first place, I was prosecuting him
on the most serious charges, so that I had no need of
bribery; in the second place, I was prosecuting a man
who was already condemned, so that he could not have
been saved even by bribery; and lastly, even if he had
been acquitted, my position and my fortune would have
been uninjm-ed by his acquittal." What does the defendant
say, on the other hand 1 " In the first place, I was alarmed at
the very number and atrocity of the charges ; in the second
place, I felt that, after the Fabricii had been condemned on
accoxmt of their privity to my wickedness, I was condemned
myself; lastly, I was in such a condition that my whole
position and all my fortunes depended entirely on that one
trial, from which I was in danger."
Come now, since the one had many and grave reasons for
bribing the judges, and the other had none, let us try to
trace the com*se of the money itself. Cluentius has kept his
accounts with the greatest accuracy ; and this system has
this in it, that by tibat means nothing can possibly be added
to or taken from the income without its being known. It is
eight years after that cause occupied men's attention that you
are now handling, stirring up, and inquiring into everything
which relates to it, both in his accounts and in the papers of
others ; and in the meantime you find no trace of any money
of Cluentius's in the whole business. What' then ? Can we
trace the money of Albius by the scent, or can you guide us,
so that we may be able to enter into his very chamber, and
find it there 1 There are in one place six hundred and forty
thousand sesterces ; they are in the possession of one most
audacious man ; they are in the possession of a judge. What
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138 OIOEEO'S ORATIONS.
would you have more? Oh, but Stalenus was not commis
Bioned to corrupt the judges by Oppianicus, but by Cluentius.
Why, when the judges were retiring to dehberate, did Clu-
entius and Canutius allow him to go away 1 Why, when they
were going to give their vote?, did they not require the presence
of Stalenus the judge, to whom they had given the money ?
Oppianicus did act for him ; Quintius did demand his pre-
sence. The tribunitian power was interposed to prevent a
decision beiqg come to without Stalenus. But he condemned
him. To be sure, for he had given this condemnatory vote
as a sort of pledge to Bulbus and the rest to prove that he had
been cheated by Oppianicus. If, therefore, on one side, there
is a reason for corrupting the tribunal; on one side, money; on
one side, Stalenus ; on one side, every description of fraud and
audacity : and on the other side, modesty, an honourable life,
, and no suspicion of corruption, and no object in corrupting
the tribunal ; allow, now that the truth is made clear and all
error dispelled, the discredit of that baseness to adhere to that
side to which all the other wickednesses are attached ; and
allow the odium of it to depart at last from that man, whom
you do not perceive to have ever been connected with
any fault.
XXXI. Oh, but Oppianicus gave Stalenus money, not to
corrupt the judges, but to concihate their favour. Can you, 0
Attius, can a man endued with your prudence, to say nothing
o^your knowledge of the world, and practice in pleading, say
such a thing as this ? For they say that he is the wisest man
to whom everything which is necessary is sure to occur of
his own accord; and that he is next best to him, who is
guided by the clever experience of another.* But in folly it
is just the contrary ; for he is less foolish to whom no folly
occurs spontaneously, than he who approves of the foUy which
occurs to another. That idea of conciliating favour Stalenus
thought oj^ while the case was fresh, when he was held by
the throat as it were ; or rather, as people said at the time,
he took the hint from Publius Cethegus, when he published
* There is an epigram in the Greek anthology from which these
sentiments of Cicero seem to be taken : —
CHros /tiv imydpta-Tos, ds adr^ vAina po-fyrif
*Z(r0\b5 S* aZ KOKeivoSy Us eZ elxSpri irid^Tou,
*Os 8^ K€ iiijt' aMs pofij, /iifr* dWou dKo^v
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FOR A. CLUENTIUS, 13^
that fable about conciliation and favour. For you can recol-
lect that this was what men said at the time; that Cethegus^
because he hated the man, and because he wished to get rid
of such rascality out of the repubHc, and because he saw that
he who had confessed that, while a judge, he had secretly and
irregularly taken money from a defencfimt, could not possibly
get ofij had given him treacherous advice. If Cethegus be-
haved dishonestly in this matter, he appears to me to have
wished to get rid of an adversary; but if the case was such
that Stalenus could not possibly deny that he had received
the money, (and nothing could be more dangerous or more
disgracefiil than to confess for what purpose he had received
it,) the advice of Cethegus is not to be blamed. But the
case of Stalenus then was very diflferent from what your case
is- now, 0 Attius. He, being pressed by the facts, could not
possibly say anything which was not more creditable than
confessing what had really happened. But I do marvel that
you should have now brought .up again the very same plea
which was then hooted out of court and rejected; fbr how
could Cluentius possibly become friends with Oppianicus,
when he was at enmity with his mother ? The names of the
defendant and prosecutor were recorded in the public docu-
ments; the Fabricii had been condemned; Albius could not
possibly escape if there were any other prosecutor, nor could
Cluentius abandon the prosecution without rendering him-
self liable to the imputation of having trumped up a felse
accusaticm.
XXXII. Was the money given to procure any collusion ?
That, too, has a direct reference to corrupting the judges.
But what was the necessity for employing a judge as an agent
in such a business ? And above all things, what need was
there for transacting the whole business through the agency
of Stalenus, a man perfectly unconnected with either party,
— a most sordid and infemotis man — ^rather than through the
intervention of some respectable person, some common friend
or connexion of both parties 'i But why need I discuss this
matter at length, as if there were any obscurity in the busi-
ness? when the very money which was given to Stalenus,
proves by its amoimt and by its sum total, not only how much
it was, but for what purpose it was given 1 I say that it was
necessary to bribe sixteen judges, in order to procure the
acquittal of Oppianicus ; I say that six hundred and forty
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140 ClCERO'S ORATIONS.
thousand sesterces were taken to Stalenus's house. If, as you
say, this was for the purpose of conciliating good-will, what is
the meaning of that addition of forty thousand sesterces?
but if, as we say, it was in order that forty thousand sesterces
might be given to each judge, then Archimedes himself could
not calculate more accurately. ^
But a great many decisions have been come to, tending to
prove that the tribunal was corrupted by. Cluentius. I say,
on the other hand, that before this time, that matter has
never been brought before the court at all on its own merits.
The matter has been so very much canvassed, and has been
so long the subject of discussion, that this is the very first
day that a word has been said in defence of Cluentius; this is
the very first day that truth, relying on these judges, haa
ventured to lift up her voice against the popular feeling.
However, what are all those numerous decisions 1 for I have
prepared myself to encounter everything, and I am ready to
show that the decisions which were said to have been come
to afterwards, bearing on that decision, were, as to some of
them, more like an earthquake or a tempest, than an orderly
judgment or a regular decision; that, as to some of them,
they had no weight against Avitus at all ; that some of them
even told in his favour; and that some were such that they
were never called judicial decisions at all, and never even
thought so. Here I, rather for the sake of adhering to the
usual custom, than from any fear that you would not do so
of your own accord, will beg of you to listen to me with
attention, while I discuss each of these decisions.
XXXIII. Caius Junius, who presided over that trial, has
been condemned; add that also, if you please, — ^he was con-
demned at the time that he was a criminal judge. No relaxa^
tion of the prosecution or mitigation of the law was prociu-ed
by the means of any one of the tribunes of the people. At
a time that it was contrary to law for him to be taken away
from the investigation of the case before him to discharge
any duty to the republic whatever; — ^at that very time, I say,
he was hurried off to the investigation. But to what investi-
gation 1 For the expression of your coimtenances, 0 judges,
invites me to say finely what I had thought I must Imve
suppressed. What shall I say ? Was that then an investiga-
tion, or a discussion, or a decision ? I will suppose it was.
Let him, who wishes to-day to speak on the subject of the
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FOR A. CLUENTIU8. 141
people having been excited, say whose wishes were at that
time compHed with; let him say on what account Jmiins
gave his decision. Whomsoever you ask, you will get this
answer; — Because he received money, because he unfairly
crushed an innocent man. This is the common opinion.
But if that were the truth, he ought to have been prosecuted
under the same law as Avitus is impeached imder. But he
himself was carrying on an investigation according to that
law. Quintius would have waited a few days. But he was
unwilling to accuse him as a private man, and when the odium
of the business had been allayed. You see then that all the
hope of the accuser was not in the cause itself, but in the
time and in the influence of individuals. He sought a fine.
According to what law ? Because he had not taken the oath
to observe the law : a thing which never yet was brought
- against any man as a crime : and because Caius Verres, the
city prsetor, a very conscientious and careful man, had not
the list out of which judges were to be chosen in the place of
those who had been rejected, in that book which was then
produced full of erasures. On all these accounts Caius Junius
was condemned, 0 judges, for these trivial and improved
reasons, which had no business to have been ever brought
before the court at all. And therefore he was defeated, not
on the merits of his case, but by the time.
XXXIV. Do you think that this decision ought to be any
hindrance to Cluentius ? On what accoimt ? If Junius had
not appointed the judges in the place of those who had been
objected to accordmg to law — ^if he had omitted to take the
oath to obey the law — does it follow that any decision bearing
on Cluentius's case was pronounced or implied in his condem-
nation ? " No," says he ; "but he was condenmed by these laws,
because he had committed an offence against aiiother law."
Can those who admit this urge also in defence that that was a
regular decision? "Therefore," says he, "the praetor was
hostile to Jimius on this account, because the tribunal was
thought to have been bribed by his means." Was then the
whole cause changed at this time ? Is the case different, is
the principle of that decision different, is the nature of the
whole business different now &om what it was then ? I do
not think that of all the things that were done then anything
can be altered. What, then, is tRe reason why our defence is
listened to with such ^ence now, but that all opportunity of
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142 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
defending himself was refused to Junius then ? Because at
that time there was nothing in the cause but envy, mistake,
suspicion, daily assembhes, seditiously stirred up by appeals
to popular feeling. The same tribime of the people was the
accuser before the assemblies, and the prosecutor in the courts
of law. He came into the court of justice not from the
assembly, but bringing the whole assembly with him. Those
steps of Aurelius,^ which were new at that time, appeai*ed as
if they had been built on purpose for a theatre for the display
of that tribimal. And when the prosecutor had filled them
with men in a state of great excitement, there was not only
no opportunity of speaking in favour of the defendant, but
none of even rising up to speak. It happened lately, before
Caius Orchinius, my colleague, that the judges refused to
sanction a prosecution against Faustus Sylla, in a cause con-
cerning some money which remained unpaid. Not because
they considered that Sylla was an outlaw, or because they
thought the cause of the public money insignificant or con-
temptible ; but because, when a tribune of the people was the
accuser, they did not think that there could be a fair trial.
What ? Shall I compare Sylla with Junius ? or this tribime
of the people with Quintius? or one time with the other time ?
Sylla, with his great wealth, his numerous relations, con-
nexions, friends, and clients ; but in the case of Junius all
these things were small, and insignificant, and collected and
acquired by his own exertions. The one a tribune of the
people, moderate, modest, not only not seditious himself, but
an enemy to seditious men ; the other bitter, fond of raking
up accusations, a hunter after popularity, and a turbulent
man. The present a tranquil and a j)eaceable time ; the for-
, mer time one ruffled with every imaginable storm of ill-will.
And as all this was the case, still in the case of Faustus those
judges decided that a defendant was brought before the court
on very imfair terms, when his adversary was in possession of
the greatest power known to the state, which he could avail
himself of to add force to his accusations.
XXXV. And this principle you, 0 judges, ought, as your
wisdom and humanity prompts and enables you to do, to con-
sider over in your mind carefully ; and to be thoroughly
aware what disaster and what danger the tribimitian power
^ These were steps built in the fomm by Marcus Aurelias Cotta, and
called by his name. ;
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FOR A. OLUKNTIUSr 143
can bring upon every one individual among ns, especially when
it is egged on by party spirit, and by assemblies of the people,
stirred np in iu seditious manner. In the veiy best times,
forsooth, when men defended themselves, not by boastings
addressed to the populace, but by their own worth and inno-
cence, still neither Publius Popillius, nor Quintus Metellus,
most illustrious and most honourable men, could withstand
the power of the tribunes ; much less at the present time,
with such manners" as we now have, and such magistrates, can
we possibly be saved without the aid of your wisdom, and
without the relief which is afforded by the com*ts of justice.
That court of justice then, 0 judges, was not like a court of
justice ; for in it there was no moderation preserved, no regard
was had to custom and usage, nor was the cause of the
defendant properly advocated. It was all violence, and, as I
have said before, a sort of earthquake or tempest, — ^it was
anything rather than a court of justice, or a legal discussion,
or a judicial investigation. But if there be any one who
thinks that that was a regular proceeding, and who thinks it
right to adhere to the decision that was tiben delivered ; still
he ought to separate this cause from that one. For it is said
that a great many things were demanded of him either be-
cause he had not taken the oath to observe the law, or because
he had not cast lots for electing judges in the room of those to
whom objection had been made in a legal manner. But the
case of Cluentius can in no particular be connected with these
laws, in accordance with which a penalty was sought to be
recovered from Jxmius. Oh, but Bulbus also was condemned.
Add that he was condemned of treason, in order that you may
understand that this trial has no connexion with that one.
But this charge was brought against him. I confess it ; but
it was ako.made evident by the letters of Caius Cosconius and
by the evidence of many witnesses, that a legion in lUyricum
had been tampered with by him ; and that charge was one
peculiarly belonging to that sort of investigation, and was one
which was comprehended under the law of treason. But this
was an exceedingly great disadvantage to him. That is mere
guess work ; and if we may have recourse to that, take care,
I beg you, that my conjecture be not far the more accurate of
the two. For my opinion is, that Bulbus, because he was a
worthless, base, dishonest man, and because he came before
the court contaminated with many crimes of the deepest dye^
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144 CICERO's ORATIONS,
was on that account the more easily condemned. But you,
out of Bulbus's whole case, select that ^rhich seems to suit
your own purpose, in order that you may say that it was
that which influenced the judges.
XXXVI. Therefore, this decision in the case of Bulbus
ought not to be any greater injury to this cause, than those
two which were mentioned by the prosecutor in the case of
Publius PopiUiuS and Titus Gutta, who were prosecuted for
corruption, — who were acci^sed by men who had themselves
been convicted of bribery, and whom I do not imagine to have
been restored to their original position merely because they
had proved that these other men also had taken money
for the purpose of influencing their decision, or because they
proved to the judges that they had detected others in the
same sort of offence of which they had themselves been
guilty ; and that, therefore, they were entitled to the rewards
offered by the law. Therefore, I think that no one can doubt
that that conviction for bribery can in no possible way be
connected with the cause of Cluentius and witii your decision.
What ! not if Stalenus was condemned ] I do not say at this
present moment, 0 judges, that which I am not sure ought
to be said at all, that he was convicted of treason, — I do not
read over to you the testimonies of most honourable men,
which were given against Stalenus by men who were lieute-
nants, and prefects, and military tribunes, under Mamercus
iEmilius, that most illustrious man, by whose evidence it was
made quite plain that it was chiefly through his instrumen-
tality, when he was qusestor, that a seditious spirit was stirred
up in the army. I do not even read to you that evidence
which was given concerning these six hundred thousand
sesterces, which when he had received on pretences connected
with the trial of Saflnius, he retained and embezzled as he
did afterwards in the case of the trial of Oppianicus. f I say
nothing of all these things, and of many others which" were
stated against Stalenus at that trial. This I do say, — ^that
Publius and Lucius Cominius, Koman knights, most honour-
able and eloquent men, had the same dispute with Stalenus .
then, whom they were accusing, that I now have with Attius.
The Cominii said the same thing that I say now, — that
Stalenus received money from Oppianicus to induce Jiim to
corrupt the tribunal, and Stalenus said that he had received
it to conciliate good-will towards him. This conciliation of
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FOR A. CLUENTIUS. 145
good-will was laughed at, and so was this assumption of the
character of a good man, as in the gilded statues, which he
erected in front of the temple of Jutuma, at the bottom
of which he had the following inscription engraved, — " that
the kings had been restored by him to the fevour of the
people." All his frauds and dishonest tricks were brought
imder discussion; his whole life, which has been spent in such
a way as that, was laid open; his domestic poverty, the profits
which he made in the courts of law,, were all brought to light :
an interpreter of peace and concord who regulated everyt^iing
by the bribes which he received was not approved of There-
fore, Stalenus was condemned at that time, while he urged
the same defence as Attius did. When the Cominii did the
same thing that I have done throughout the whol^ of this
cause, people approved of them. Wherefore, if by the con-
demnation of Stalenus it was decided that Oppianicus had
desired to corrupt the judges, — ^that Oppianicus had given
one of the judges money to purchase the votes of the other
judges, (since it has been already settled that either Cluentius
is guilty of that offence, or else Oppianicus, but that no
trace whatever is found of any money belonging to Cluen-
tius having been ever given to any judge, while money belong-
ing to Oppianicus was taken away, after the trial was over, ,
from a judge,)— can it be doubtful that that conviction of
Stalenus does not only not make against Cluentius, but is
the greatest possible confirmation of our cause and of our
defence ?
XXXVII. Therefore, I see now that the case respecting
the decision of Junius is of this nature, that I think it ought
to be called an inroad of sedition, an instance of the violence
of the multitude, an outrage on the part of a tribune, any-
thing rather than a judicial proceeding. But if any one caUs
that a regular trial, still he must inevitably admit this,^ — ^that
that penalty which was sought to be recovered from Junius
cannot by any means be connected with the cause of Cluen-
tius. That decision of the tribunal over which Junius pre-
sided, was brought about by evidence. The cases of Bulbus,
of Popillius, and of Gutta, dp not make against Cluentius.
That of Stalenus is actually in favour of Cluentius. Let us
now see if there is any other decision which we can produce
which is favourable to Cluentius.
Was not Caius Fidiculanius Falcula, who had condemned
VOL. n. L
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146 CICBRO'S OBATIONB.
Oppiamcus, prosecuted especially because — amd that was the
point which in that trial was the hardest to excuse — ^he had
sat as judge a few days after the appointment of a substitute?
He was, indeed, prosecuted, and that twice. For Lucius
Quintius had brought him into extreme Tmpopularity by
means of daily seditious and turbulent assemblies. On one
trial a penalty was sought to be recovered from him, as from
Junius, because he had sat as judge, not in his own decury, nor
according to the law. He was prosecuted at a rather more peace- .
able time than Junius, but tmder almost the same law, and on
very nearly the same indictment. But because at the* trial
there was no sedition, no violence, and no crowd, he was
easily acquitted at the first hearing. I do not count this
acquittal.* ******
What was Fidiculanius said to have done? To have
received from Cluentius four hundred sesterces. Of what
rank was hel A senator. He was accused according to that
law by which an account is properly demanded of a senator
in a prosecution for peculation, and he was most honourably
acquitted. For the cause was pleaded according to the
custom of our ancestors, without violence, without fear,
without danger. Everything was fairly stated, and explained,
and proved. The judges were taught that not only could
a defendant be honestly condemned by a man who had not
sat as a judge uninterruptedly, but that if that judge had
known nothing else except what previous investigations it
was clear had taken place in the case, he ought to have heard
nothing else.
XXXVIII. Then, also, those five judges, who, hunting for
the vague rumours of ignorant men, acquitted him at that
time, were unwilling that their clemency should be extra-
vagantly praised ; and if any one asked them whether they
had sat as judges on Caius Fabricius, they said that they had;
if they were a^ed whether he had been accused of any crime
except of that poison which was said to have been endea-
voured to be adnnnistered to Avitus, they said no ; if, after
that, they were asked what their decision had been, they said
that they had condemned him. For no one acquitted him.
In the same manner, if any question had been asked about
1 The passage which follows in the text is given up by Orellius as
altc^ther corrupt, and, is wholly unintelligible as it stands at present.
Weiake thinks that several words have dropped out.
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FOR A. GLUENTIUS. 147
Scamander, they would certainly have given the same answer,
although he was acquitted by one vote; but at that time
no one of those men would' have liked that one vote to be
called his. Which, then, could more easily give an account
of his vote, — ^he who said that he had been consistent with
himself and with the previous decision, or he who said that
he had been lenient to the principal oflfender, and very severe
against his assistants and accomplices ? But concerning their
decision I have no occasion to say anything; for I have no
doubt, that such men as they, being influenced by some
sudden suspicion, avoided the point at issue. On which
account I find no feult with the mercy of those who ac-
quitted him. I approve o^ the firmness of those men who,
in giving their judgment, followed the precedent of the pre-
vious decisions of their own accord, and not in consequence
of the fi:uudulent trick of Stalenus ; but I praise the wisdom
of those men who said that to their minds it was not proved,
who could by no means acquit a man whom they knew to be
very guilty, and whom they themselves had already con-
demned twice before, but who, as such a disgraceful plan,
and as a suspicion of such an atrocious act had been suggested
to them, preferred condemning him a little later, when the
fects were clearly ascertained. And, that you may not judge
them to have been exceedingly wise men merely by their
actions, but that you may also feel sure, firom their very
names, that what they did was most honestly and wisely done;
who can be mentioned superior to Publius Octavius Balbus,
as to ability more prudent, — ^in knowledge of law more
skilful, — ^in good faith, in religion, in the performance of his
duty, more scrupulous or more careful ? He did not acquit
him. Who is a better man than Quintus Considius 1 who is
better acquainted with the practice of courts of justice, and
with that sense of right which ought always to exist in the
public courts ? who is his superior in virtue, in wisdom, or in
authority ? Even he did not acquit him. It would take me
too long to cite the virtue of each separate individual in the
same manner ; and in truth, their good qualities are so well
known to every one, that they do not need the ornaments
of language to set them off*. What a man was Marcus
Juventius Pedo, a man formed on the principles and system
of the judges of old ! What a man was Lucius Caulius
Mergus I and Marcus Basilus ! and Caius Caudinus ! all of
l2
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148 CICBRO'S OR^lTIONS.
whom flourished ia the public courts of justice at that time
when the republic also was flourishiug. Of the same body-
were Lucius Cassius and Cnseus Heius, men of equal integrity
and wisdom. And by the vote of none of those men was
Oppianicus acquitted. And the youngest of all but one, who
in abihty, and in diligence, and in conscientiousness was
equal to those men whom I have already mentioned, Publius
Saturius, delivered the same opinion. 0, the singular inno-
cence of Oppianicus ! when in the case in which he was
defendant, those who acquitted him are supposed to have had
some ulterior end, — ^those who postponed their decision, to
have been cautious ; but every one who condemned him is
esteemed virtuous and firm.
XXXIX. These things, though Quintius agitated them,
were not proved at that time either in the assembly or in a
court of justice. For he himself would not allow them to be
stated, nor indeed, by reason of the excited state of the mul-
titude, could any one stand up to speak. Therefore he himself,
' after he had overthrown Junius, abandoned the whole cause.
For in a very few day^' time he became a private individual,
and he perceived too that the violence of men's feelings had
cooled down. But if at the time that he accused Junius he had
also chosen to accuse Fidiculanius, Fidiculanius Would have
had no opportimity of making any reply. And at first, indeed,
he threatened all those judges who had voted against Oppi-
anicus. By this time you know the insolence of the mail. You
know what a tribune-like pride and arrogance he has. How
great was the animosity which he displayed 1 0 ye immortal
gods ! how great was his pride ! how great his ignoranciB of
himself! how preposterous and intolerable was his arro-
gance U when he was indignant even at this, (from which all
those proceedings of his took their rise,) that Oppianicus was
not pardoned at his entreaty and owing to his defence ; just
as if it ought ,not to have been proof enough that he was
deserted by every one, that he had recourse to such an advo-
cate as him. For there was at Rome a great abundance of
advocates, most eloquent and most honourable men, of whom
certainly any one would have defended a Roman knight, of
noble birth in his municipality, if he had thought that such
a cause could be defended with honour.
XL. For, as for Quintius, indeed, wha^t cause had he ever
pleaded before, though he was now nearly fifty years old 1
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FOR A. CLUBNTIUS. 149
"Who had ever seen him not only in the position of a counsel
for the defence, but even as a witness to character, or as em-
ployed in any* way in any cause ? who, because he had seized
on the rostrum which had been for some time empty, and the
place which had been deserted by the voice of the tribunes
ever since the arrival of Lucius Sylla, and had recalled the
multitude, which had now been for some time unused to
assemblies, to the likeness of the old custom, was on that
account for a short time rather popular with a certain set of
men. But yet afterwards how hated he became by those
very men by whose means he had mounted into a higher
position I — and very deservedly. For just take the trouble
to recollect not only his manners and his arrogance, but also
his countenance, and his dress, and his purple robe reaching
down aa far as his ancles. He, as if it were a thing quite im-
possible to be borne that he should have been defeated in this
trial, transferred the case from the court of justice to the
public assembly. And do we still reiterate our complaints,
that new men have not sufficient encouragement in this city 1
I say, that there never was a time or place where they had
more ; for here, if a man, though bom in a low rank of life,
lives so as to seem able to uphold by his virtue the dignity of
nobility, he meets with no obstacle to his arriving at that emi-
nence to which his industry and innocence conduct him. But
if any one depends on the foot of his being meanly bom as his
chief claim, he often goes greater lengths than if he was a man
of the highest birth devoted to the same vices. As, in the case
of Quintius, (for I will say nothing of the others,) if he had
been a man of noble birth, who could have endured him with
his pride and intolerance ? But because he was of the rank
of which he was, people put up with it, as if they thought that
if he had any good quality by nature, it ought to be allowed
to save him, and as i^ owing to the meanness of his birth,
they thought his pride and arrogance matters to be laughed
at rather than feared.
XLI. However, to return to my original subject: What
decision did you — ^you, I say, who mention those trials —
think ought to have been come to at the time that Fidi-
* " The Latin is, ' non modo in patroni, sed In laudatoris, aut advoccUi,
loco viderat.' In the time of Cicero the advocaiua was different from
.the person who conducted the suit {paironus) and made the speech,
though in later times this person likewise is called ad wca<i«." — Riddle,
Lat Diet, in toc.
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150 Cicero's orations.
culanius wsis acquitted ? At least you think that the decision
was not a corrupt one. But he had condemned him ; but he
had not heard the entire case ; but he had been greatly and
repeatedly annoyed at every assembly of the people, by
Lucius Quintius. Then the whole of Quintius's judicial con*
duct -was unjust, deceitful, fraudulent, turbulent, dictated by
a wish for popularity, seditious. Be it so ; Falcula may have
been innocent. Well then, some one condenmed Oppianicus
without being paid for it ; Junius did not appoint men as
judges in the place of the others, to condemn him for a bribe.
It is possible that there may have been some one who did not
sit as judge from the beginning, and^who, nevertheless, con-
demned Oppianicus without having been bribed to do so.
But if Falcula was innocent, I wish to know who was guilty ?
If he condemned him without being bribed to do so, who
was bribed ? I say that there has been nothing imputed to
any one of these men which was not imputed to Fidiculanius ;
I say that there was nothing in the case of Fidiculanius which
did not also exist in the case of the rest. You must either find
fault with this trial, the prosecution in which appeared to rely
on previous decisions, or else, if you admit that this was an
honest one, you must allow that Oppianicus was condemned
without money having been paid to procure his condemnation.
Although it ought to be proof enough for any one, that no
one out of so many judges was proceeded against after Falcula
had been acquitted. — For why do you bring up men con-
victed of bribery under a dijBferent law, the charges being well
proved, the witnesses being numerous? when, in the first
place, these very men ought to be accused of peculation
rather than of bribery. For if, in trials for bribery, this was
an hindrance to them, that they were being prosecuted under
a different law, at all events it would have been a much
greater injury to them to be brought before the court accord-
ing to the law properly belonging to this offence. In the
second place, if the weight attached to this accusation was so
great, that, under whatever law any one of those judges was
prosecuted, he must be utterly ruined ; then why, when there
are such crowds of accusers, and when the reward is so great,
were not the others prosecuted too 1 On this, that case is
mentioned, (which, however, has no right to be called a tiial,)
that an action for damages was brought against Publius Sep-
timius ScsBvola on that account ; and what the practice is in
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FOR A. CLUBNTIU8. 161
cases of that sort, as T am speaking before men of the
greatest learning, I have no need to occupy much time in
explaining. For the diligence which is usually displayed in
other tri^s, is never exercised after the defendant has been
convicted. In actions for damages, the judges usually, either
because they think that a man whom they have once con-
victed is hostile to them, if any mention of a capital charge
against him is made, do not allow it ; or else, because they
think that their duties are over when they have given their
decision respecting the defendant, they attend more carelessly
to the other points. Therefore, very many men are acquitted
of treason, when, if they were condemned, actions would be
brought to recover damages on charges of peculation. And
we see this happen every day, — that when a defendant has
been convicted of peculation, the judges acquit those men to
whom, in fixing tie damages, it has been settled that the
money has come ; and when this is the case, the decisions are
not rescinded, but this principle is laid down, that the assess-
ment of damages is not a judicial trial. Scsevola was con-
victed of other charges, by a great number of witnesses from
Apulia. The greatest possible eagerness was shown in en-
deavouring to have that action considered as a capital- pro-
secution. And if it had had the weight of a case already
decided, he afterwards, according to this identical law, would
have been prosecuted either by tie same enemies, or by others.
XLII. That follows, which they call a trial, but which our
ancestors never called a trial, and never paid any attention to
as if it had been a formal judicial decision, the animadversion
and authority of the censors. But before I begin to speak on
that subject, I must say a few words about my own duty, in
order that it may be clearly seen that I have paid proper ^
attention to this danger, and also to all other considerations /
of duty and friendship. I
For I l^ave a friendship with both those brave men who '
were the last censors ; and with one of them, (as most of you ' !
are aware,) I have the greatest intimacy, and the closest con- ^
nexion cemented by mutual good offices. So that, if I am
forced to say anything of the reasons which they have given
for their sentences, I shall say it with these feelings, that I
shall wish everything that I say considered as having reference
not to their individual conduct in particular, but to the whole
principle of the censorial animadversion. But from Lentulus,
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152 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
my intimate friend, who out of regard for his eminent virtue
and for the high honours which he has received from the
Koman people, is named by me to do him honour, I shall
easily obtain this indulgence, that, as he himself is always
accustomed to employ the greatest good fiedth and diligence in
matters affecting the safety of his friends, and also the greatest
vigour of mind and freedom of speech, so, in this instance, he
will not be offended with me for taking as much freedom my-
self, as I cannot forbear to take without danger to my client.
But, everything shall be said by me carefully and deliberately,
as indeed it ought to be, so that I shall not appear to have
betrayed the cause entrusted to my good faith for its defence,
nor to have injured the dignity of any one, nor to have dis-
regarded any of the claims of friendship.
I see then, 0 judges, that the censors passed animadversion
on some of the judges who sat on that trial which Junius pre-
sided over, and added to their sentence that that very trial
was the cause of it. Now, first I will lay down this general
principle, that this city has never been so content with cen-
sorial animadversions as with judicial decisions. Nor in so
notorious a case need I waste time by citing instances. I will
lust adduce this one fact, — ^that Caius Geta, after he had
been expelled the senate by Lucius Metellus and Cnseus
Domitius when they were censors, was himself appointed censor
afterwards j and that he whose morals had met with this
reproof from the censors, was afterwards appointed to judge
of the morals of the whole Roman people, and of those very
men who had thus punished him. But if that had been
thought a final judicial decision, (as other men when they
have been condemned by a sentence involving infamy are de-
prived for ever of all honour and all dignity, so) a man branded
with this ignominy would never have had any subsequent
access to honour, or any possibility of return to the senate.
Now, if the freedman of Cnaeus Lentulus or of Lucius GeUius
should convict any man of theft, he, being deprived of all his'
credit, will never recover any portion of his honourable posi-
tion in the city; but those men, whom Lucius Gellius himself
and CnsBUS Lentulus, the two censors, most illustrious citizens
and most wise men, -have animadverted on, and, in their
reasons for their sentences, have imputed to them theft and
peculation, have not only returned to the senate, but have
been acquitted of those very charges by judicial sentence.
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FOR A. CLUBNTIUS. 153
XLIII. Our ancestors did not think it fit for any one to be
a judge, not only of any one's character, but not even of the
most insignificant money matter, if he had not been agreed
to by both the contending parties. Wherefore, in every law
in which exception has been made of causes for which a
magistrate may not be taken, or a judge elected, or another
man accused, this cause of ignominy is passed over. For
their intention was that the power of the censors should strike
the profligate with terror, but not that it should have power
over their lives. Therefore, 0 judges, I will not only prove
what you are already aware of, that the censorial animadver-
sions, and the reasons given for them too, have often been over-
turned by the votes of the Roman people, but that they have
also been upset by the judicial sentences of those men who,
being on their oaths, were bound to give their decisions^ with
more scrupulousness and care. In the first place, 0 judges,
in the case of many defendants, whom the censors in their
notes accused of having taken money contrary to the laws,
they were guided by their own conscientious judgment, rather
than by the opinion expressed by the censors. In the second
place, the city praetors, who are bound by their oaths to select
only the most virtuous men to be judges, have never thought
that the feict of a man's having been branded with ignominy
by the censors was any impediment to their making him a
judge. And lastly, the censors themselves have very often
not adhered to lie decisions, if you insist on their being
called decisions, of former censors. And even the censors
themselves consider their own decisions to be of only so much
weight, that one is not afiaid to find fault with, or even to
rescind the sentence of the other ; so that one decides on
removing a man firom the senate, the other wishes to have
him retained in it, and thinks him worthy of the highest rank.
The one orders him to be degraded to the rank of an aerarian^
or to be .entirely disfranchised ; the other forbids it. So that
how can it occur to you to call those judicial decisions which
you see constantly rescinded by the Roman people, repudiated
by judges on their oaths, disregarded by the magistrates,
altered by those who have the same power subsequently con-
' JErarii were those citizens of Rome who did not enjoy the perfect
franchise. They had to pay the om mUitare, and to remove a citizen in
the enjoyment of the fuU franchise into the list of those who enjoyed a
less complete one, was of course a degradation and a punishment.
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154 OIOERO'S OBATIONS.
ferred on them, and in which you see that the colleagues
themselves repeatedly disagree ?
XLIV. And as all this is the case, let ns see what the
censors are said to have decided respecting that corrupt
tribunal And first of all let us lay down this principle;
whether a thing is so because the censors have stated it in
their notes, or whether they made such a statement in their
notes because it was the fact. If it is the case because they
have so stated it, take care what you are doing ; beware lest
you are establishing for the future a king by power in the
person of every one of our censors, — beware lest the note ^ of
a censor may hereafter be able to cause as much distress to
the citizens as that terrible proscription did, — beware lest
we have reason to dread for the future that pen of the censor,
whose point our ancestors blunted by many remedies, as much
as that sword of the dictator. But if the statement which
has been made in their notes ought to carry weight with it
because it is true, then let us inquire whether it be true or
felse ; let the authority of the censor be put out of the ques-
tion— ^let that consideration be taken out of the cause which
has no connexion with it. Tell me what money Cluentius
gave, where he got it, how he gave it ; show me, in short, one
trace of any money having proceeded from Cluentius. After
that, prove that Oppianicus was a virtuous citizen, or an honest
man ; that no one had ever had a bad opinion of him ; that
no unfavourable decision had ever been come to respecting
him. Then take in the authority of the censors ; then argue
that their decision has any connexion whatever with this case.
But as long as it is plain that Oppianicus was a man who was
convicted of having tampered with the public registers of his
own municipality, of having made erasures in a mil, of having
substituted another person in order to accomplish the forgery
of a will, of having murdered the man whose name he had
put to the will, of having thrown into slavery and into prison
the uncle of his own son and then murdered him, of having
contrived to get his own fellow-citizens proscribed and mur-
dered, of having married the wife of the man whom he had
murdered, of having given money for poisoning, of having
^ In the twenty-ninth book of Livy, c. 37, an extraordinary instance
is related of disagreement between the censors ; for one of them, Cains
Claudius Nero, degraded his colleague, Marcus Liyius ; and LlTius.inhis
turn degraded Caius Claudius.
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FOR A. OLUBNTIUa 155
murdered his mother-in-law and his wife, of having murdered
at one time his brother's wife, the children who were expected,
and his own brother himself, — ^lastly, of having murdered his
own children ; as he was a man who was manifestly detected
in procuring poison for his son-in-law, — who, when his assist-
ants and accomplices had been condemned, and when he
himself was prosecuted, gave money to one of the judges to
influence by bribes the votes of the other judges ; — while, I
say, all this is notorious about Oppianicus, and while the
accusation of bribery against Cluentius is not sustained by
any one single proo^ what reason is there that that sentence
of the censors, whether it is to be called their wish or their
opinion, should either seem to be any assistance to you, or to
be able to overwhelm my innocent client?
XLV. What was it, then, that influenced the censors?
Even they themselves, if they were to allege the most serious
reason that they could, would not say it was anything else
beyond common conversation and report. They will say that
they foimd out nothing by witnesses, nothing by documents,
nothing by any important evidence, nothing, in short, from
any investigation of the cause. If they had investigated it,
still their sentence ought not to have been so fixed as to be
impossible to be altered. I will not quote precedents, ot
which, however, there is an infinite number; I will not men-
tion any old instance, or any powerful or influential man.
Very lately, when I had defended an insignificant man, clerk
to the sediles, Decius Matrinius, before Marcus Junius and
Quintus Pubiicius, the praetors, and before Marcus Platoriua
and Caius Flaminius, the curule aediles, T persuaded them^ —
men sworn to do their duty, — ^to choose him for their secre-
tary whom those same censonkiiad made an aerarian ; for as
there was no hxHt foimd in the man, they thought that they
^ught to inquire what he deserved, and not what resolution j
had been come to respecting him. For. as for these things
which they have stated in their notes, about corrupting the
judges, who is there who beheves that they were siS&ciently \
ascertained or carefully inquired into by them ? I see that
a note was made by the censors respecting Marcus Aquillius
and Titus Gutta; — ^what does this mean? Were those two
the only men corrupted with bribes ? What became of the
rest ? Did they, forsooth, condemn him for nothing ? He,
then, was not unfiurly dealt with; he was not overwhelmed
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156 Cicero's orations.
by means of bribes; it is not the case, as all those assembliee
stirred up by Quintins would have it, that all the men who
voted against Oppianicus are to be imagined criminal, or at
aU events suspected. I see that two men alone are judged
by the authority of the censors to have been implicated in
that infamy; or else they must all^e that there is something
which they have found out concerning those two men which
they have not found out respecting the others.
XLVI. For that indeed can never be allowed, that they
should transfer the usage of military discipline to the ani-
madversions and authority of the censors ; for our ancestors
established a rule, that if in military affairs a crime had been
committed by a number of soldiers, a few should be punished
by lot, that so fear might have its influence on all, while the
punishment reached only a few. But how can it be fitting
for the censors to act on this principle in the distribution of
dignities, in their judgment on the character of citizens, and
in their punishment of their vices? For a soldier who has
not maintained his post, who has been afraid of the vigorous
attack of the enemy, may still hereafter become a better
soldier, and a virtuous man, and a useful citizen. Wherefore,
to prevent his committing offences in time of war through fear
of the enemy, the great feax of death and execution was esta-
blished by our ancestors; but yet, that the number of those'
who underwent capital punishment might not be too great,
that plan of drawing lots was invented. But will you, 0
censor, act in this way when choosing the senate 1 Supposing
there are many who have taken bribes to condemn an inno-
cent man, will you not punish all of them, but will you pick
as you choose, and select a few out of the many to brand
with ignominy? Shall the senate then, while you see and
know it to be the case, have a senator — shall the Roman people
have a judge — shall the republic have a citizen, immarked by
any ignominy, who, to cause the ruin of an innocent man, has
sold his good faith and religion for a bribe? And shall a
man, who, being induced by a bribe, has deprived an innocent
citizen of his country, his fortune, and his children, not be
branded by the stigma of the censor's severity? Are you the
prefect appointed to supervise our manners — are you a teacher
of the ancient discipline and severity, if you either knowingly
retain any one in the senate who is tainted with such wicked-
ness, or if you decide that it is not right to inflict the same
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FOR A. qhvissTnsB, 167
punislimeiit on eveiy one who is guilty of the same feult 1
or will you establish the same principle of punishment with
respect to the dishonesty of a senator in his peaceful capacity,
which our ancestors chose to establish witii respect to the
cowardice of a soldier in time of war? Moreover, if this
precedent ought to have been transferred from military aflSurs
to the animadversion of the censors, at all events the system
of drawing lots should have . been retained. But if it is not
consistent with the dignity of a censor to draw lots for punish-
ment, and to commit the guilt of men to the decision of
fortune, it certainly cannot be right in the case of an offence
committed by many, that a few should be selected for igno-
miny and disgrace.
XLVII. But we all xmderstand that in these notes of the
censors the real object was to catch at some breeze of popular
fiivour. The matter had been brought forward in the assembly
by a factious tribune; without any investigation into the
business, his conduct was approved by the multitude; no one
was allowed to say a word on the other side; indeed, no one
showed the least anxiety to espouse the other side of the ques-
tion. Moreover, those judges had already become exceedingly
unpopular. A few months afterwards there was a fresh and
very great odium excited with respect to the courts of justice,
arising out of the affair of marking the balloting balls. The
disgrace into which the courts were feJlen appeared quite
impossible to be overlooked or treated with indifference by
the censors. So they chose to brand those men whom they
saw were infamous for other vices, and for generally disgrace-
ful lives, with their animadversion and special note also ; and
so much the more, because at that very time, during their
censorship, the right of sitting as judges was divided with the
equestrian body, in order that they might seem to have
reproved those tribunals by their authority, through the igno-
miny inflicted on deserving men. But tf I or any one else
had been allowed to plead this cause before those censcas, I
would certainly have proved to the satisfaction of men en-
dowed with such prudence, (for the facts of the case prove it,)
that they themselves had ascertained nothing, had discovered
nothing; but that in all those notes appended to their ani-
madversions nothing had guided them but rumour, and
nothing had been sought but popular applause. For to the
name of Publius PopSlius, who had condemned Oppianicus,
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158 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
Lucius Gellius had appended a note, " because he had taken
money to condemn an innocent man." Now what a real
conjurer that man must be, 0 judges, to know that a man
was innocent, whom, very likely, he had never seen, when
the very wisest men, to say nothing of those who actually
condemned him, after investigation of the case, said that they
were not without doubt in the matter !
However, be it so. Gellius condemns Popillius. He -decides
that he had accepted money from Cluentius. Lentulus says
that he had not. For he did not elect Popillius into the
senate, because he was the son of a freedman ; but he left
him his place as a senator at the games, and the other orna-
ments of that rank, and released him from all ignominy.
And by doing so, he declares his opinion, that he had voted
against Oppianicus without having been bribed to do so. And
afterwards Lentulus, on a trial for bribery, gave his evidence
most zealously in favour of this same Popillius. Wherefore, if'
Lentulus did not agree with the decision of Lucius GreUius,
and if Gellius was not contented with the opinion delivered by
Lentulus, and if each censor thought himself not bound at
all by the opinion of the other censor, what reason is there
why any one of us should think that the notes of the censors
ought to be all fixed and ratified so as to be imalterable for
ever 1
XLVIII. Oh, but they visited Avitus himself with their
censure. Not for any baseness, nor for any, I will not say
vice, but not even for any feiult of his own in his whole life.
For no one can possibly be a more religious man, or a more
honourable one, or more scrupulous in fulfilling all his duties.
Nor indeed does the opposite party say anything to the con-
trary, but they adopt the same report of the judges having
been bribed. Nor indeed have they any contrary opinion to
that which we wish to be entertained about his modesty, in-
tegrity, and virtue ; but they thought it quite impossible for
the accuser to be passed over after the judges had been
punished. And with respect to this whole business, if I pro-
duce one precedent from the whole of our ancient history, I
will say no more. For I think that I ought not to pass over
the instance of that most eminent and most illustrious man,
Publius Afiicanus ; who, when he was censor, and when Caius
Licinius Sacerdos had appeared on the register of the knights,
said with a loud voice, so that the whole assembly could hear
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FOB A. CLUENTIUS. 159
him, that he knew that he had committed deliberate perjury^
and that if any one denied it, he would give him his own
evidence in support of this assertion. But when no one ven-
tured to deny it, he ordered him to give up his horse. ^ So
that he, with whose decision the Eoman people and foreign
nations had beeli accustomed to content themselves, was not
content with his own private knowledge as justifying him in
branding another with ignominy. But if Avitus ^had been
allowed to do this, he would have found it an easy matter to
have resisted those very judges themselves, and the false
suspicion, and the odium excited in the breasts of the people
against him.
There is still one thing which especially perplexes me, and
a topic to which I appear to have scarcely made any sufficient
reply, — namely, the eulogy which you read, extracted from the
will of Caius Egnatius, the father, a most honourable man,
and a most wise one; saying that he had dismherited his son,
because he had taken a bribe to vote for the condemnation of
Oppianicus. Of that man's inconstancy and feebleness I will
not say another word. This very will which you are reading
is such, that he, when he was dimnheriting that son whom he
hated, was joining with his other son whom he loved, the most .
perfect s1;rangers as his coheirs. But I think that you, 0
Attius, should consider carefully, whether you wish the deci-
sion of the cenqoi$, or thai of Egnatius, to carry most weight
with it. If that df Egnatius, that is a trifling thing which the
censors have expressed in their notes about the others ; for
they ^ expelled Egnatius himself from the senate, whom you
wish to be considered an authority. If that of die censors iii^
to prepoiiderate, then the censors when they expelled his "
father, retained this Egnatius in the senate, whom his &ther
disinherited on account of the note which the censors had
written respecting him.
XLIX. Oh, but the whole senate judged that that tribimal
had been bribed. How so ? It undertook the cause. Could
it pass over with indifference a matter of that sort when
^ * " If the censors considered a knight unworthy of his rank, they stmck
him out of the list of knights, and deprived him of his horse, or ordered
him to sell it, with the intention, no doubt, that the person thus
degraded should refund to the state the money which had been advanced
to him for its purchase. (Niebuhr, Hist, of Eome, vol. i. p. 433.)" —
Smithy Diet. Ant. p. 895, v. Equites.
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160 cioebo'b orations.
reported to it 1 When a tribune of the people, having stirred
up the multitude, had almost brought the matter to a trial of
strength; when a most virtuous citizen and most innocent
man was said to have been unjustly condemned through the
influence of money ; when the whole body of senators was
exceedingly impopular, was it possible for no, edict to be
issued 1 Was it possible for all tiiat excitement of the multi-
tude to be disregarded without extreme danger to the re-
public ? But wlmt was decreed 1 How justly, how wisely,
how diligently was it decreed 1 " If there are any men by
whose agency the public court of justice was corrupted."
Does the senate appear here to decide that any such thing
was really done ? or rather to be exceedingly angry and in-
dignant if such a thing was done ? If Aulus Cluentius
himself vere asked his opinion about the courts of justice,
he would express no other sentiments than those which they
expressed, by whose sentences you say ttikt Aulus Cluentius
was condemned. But I ask of you whether Lucius LucuUus,
the consul, a very wise man, passed that law according to that
resolution of the senate ? I ask whether Marcus LucuUus
and Caius Cassius passed that law, against whom, when they
were the consuls elect, the senate passed the very same reso-
lution ? They did not pass it. And that which you assert
to have been brought about by Avitus's money, though you
do not confirm your assertion by even the very slightest cir-
cumstances of suspicion, was done in the first instance by the
justice and wisdom of those consuls, in order that menanig];^t
not think that what the senate had decreed for the purpose of
extinguishing the flames of present impopularity, might after-
wards be referred to the people. The Roman people itself
afterwards, which formerly when excited by the fictitious
complaints of Lucius Quintius, a tribime of the people, had
demanded that thing and the proposal of that law, now. being
influenced by the tears of the son of Caius Junius, a little
boy, rejected the whole Mw and the whole proposition with
the greatest outcry and with the greatest eagerness. From
which that was easy to be understood which has been often
said, — ^that as the sea, which by its own nature is tranqtdl, is
often agitated and disturbed by the violence of the winds, so,
too, the Roman people is, when left to itself, placable, but
is easily roused by the language of seditious men, as by th»
most violent storm.
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^^.
FOB A. CLUENTIUS. 161
L. There is also one other very great authority besides,
whioh I had almost passed over in a shameful manner ; for
it is said to be my own. Attius read out of some oration
or other, which he said was mine, a certain exhortation to the
judges to judge honestly, and a certain mention of judicial
decisions in other cases, which had not been approved of, and
also of that very trial before Junius ; just as if I had not
said at the beginning of this defence, that had been a trial
which had incurred great unpopularity ; or as if, when I was
discussing the discredit into which the courts of justice had
&llen in some instances, I could possibly at that time pass
over that one which was so notorious. But I, if I said any-
thing of that sort, did n<yt mention it as a thing within my
own knowledge, nor did I state it in evidence; and that
speech was prompted rather by the occasion, than by my
judgment and deliberate intention. For when I was acting as
•accuser, and had proposed to myself at the beginning to rouse
the feelings of the Boman people and of the judges ; and as
I was mentioning all the errors of the courts of justice, relying
not on my own opinion, but on the common report of men;
I could not pass over that matter which had been so univer-
sally discussed. But whoever thinks that he has my positive
opinions recorded indehbly in those orations which we have
delivered in the courts of justice, is greatly mistaken. For
all those speeches are speeches of the cause, and of the occa-
sion, and are not the speeches of the men or of the advocates
themselves. For if the causes themselves could speak for
themselves, no one would employ an orator. But, as it is, we
are employed, in order to say, not things which are to be con-
sidered as asserted on our own authority, but things which are
derived from the circumstances of the cause itself They say
that that able man, Marcus Antonius, was accustomed to say,
** that he had never written a speech, in order that, if at any
time he had said anything which was not desirable, he might
be able to deny that he had said it." Just as if whatever were
tsaid or pleaded by us was not retained in men's memories, if
we did not ourselves commit it to writing.
LI. But I, with respect to speeches of that sort, am guided
by the authority of many men, and especially of that most
eloquent and most wise man, Lucius Crassus ; who — when he
was defending Lucius Plancius, whom Marcus Brutus, a man
modt vehement and able as a speaker, was prosecuting ; when
VOL. u. H
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162 OIOBBO'S ORAbciONS.
Brutus, having set two men to read, made them read alternate
chapters out of two speeches of his, entirely contrary to one
another, because when he was arguing against that motion
which was introduced against the colony of Narbo, he dis-
paraged the authority of the senate as much as he could, but
when he was urging the adoption of the Servilian law, he
extolled the senate with the most excessive praises; and when
he had read out of that oration many things which had been
spoken with some harshness against the Roman knights, in
order to inflame the minds of those judges against Crassus — ^is
said to have been a good deal agitated. And so, in making
his reply, he first of all explained the diflference between the
two times, so that the speech might appear to have arisen
from the case and fi-om its circumstances ; after that, in order
that Brutus might learn what a man, not only eloquent but
endued with the greatest wit and feoetiousness, he had pro-
voked, he himself in his turn brought up three readers with a
book a-piece, all which books Marcus Brutus, the father of the
prosecutor, had left, on the civil law. When the first lines
of them were read, those which I take to be known to all of
you, " It happened by chance that I and Brutus my son were
in the country near Privemum," he asked what had become of
his ferm at Privemum. " I and Brutus my son were in
the district of Alba." He begged to know where his Alban
ferm was. " Once, when I and Brutus my son had sat down
in the fields near Tibur." Where was his fimn near Tibur ?
And he said that " Brutus, a wise man, seeing the profligacy
of his son, evidently wished to leave a record behind him of
what &rms he left him. And if he could with any decency
have written that he had been in the bath with a son of that
age, he would not have passed it over ; and still that he pre-
ferred inquiring about those baths, not fi"om the books of his
fiither, but firom the registers and the census." Crassus then
chastised Brutus in this manner, and made him repent of his
readings. For perhaps he had been annoyed at being reproved
for those speeches which he had delivered in the al&rs of the
republic ; in which perhaps deliberate wisdom is more re-
quired than in those in court But I am not at all vexed at
those things having been read. For they were not unsuited
to the state of the times which then existed, nor to the cause
in which they were spoken. Nor did I take any obligation
on myself when I spoke them, to prevent my defending this
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POB A. CLUBNTIU8. 16S
cause with honour and freedom. But suppose I were now to
confess, that I had now become acquainted with the real
merits of Cluentius's case, but that I was previously influenced
by popular opinion concerning it, who could blame me ?
especially wh|Bn, 0 judges, it is most i*easonable that this also
should be granted me by you, which I begged at the beginning,
and which I request now, that if yoti have brought with you
into court a somewhat amfavourable opinion of this cause,
you will lay it aside now that you have thoroughly investigated
the case and learnt the whole truth.
LII. Now since, 0 Titus Attius, I replied to everything
which was said by you concerning the condemnation of Oppi-
anicus, you must inevitably confess that you were very much
deceived when you thought that I would defend the cause) of
Aulus Cluentius, not by arguing on his own actions, but on
the law. For you very often said that you had been informed
that I intended to defend this action, relying on the protec-
tion of the law. Is it so 1 Are we, then, without knowing
it, betrayed by our friends ] and is there some one among
those whom we think our friends, who carries intelligence of
our plans to our adversaries? Who reported this to you?
Who was so dishonest ? But to whom did I tell it ? No one,
I imagine, is in fe,ult; but in truth it was the law itself which
suggested this to you. But do I appear to have defended it
in such a way as to have made throughout the whole case the
least mention of the law? Do I appear to have defended
this cause differently from the way in which I should have
defended it if Avitus had been guilty by law, supposing the
fects to be proved ? Certainly, as far as a man may assert a
thing positively, I have omitted no opportimity of clearing him
from the odious imputation sought to be cast on him. What
do I mean, then ? Some one ufill ask, perhaps, whether I have
any objection to ward off danger from a client's hfer by the
protection with which the law supplies me ? I have no ob-
jection at all, 0 judges; but I adhere to my own plan of
action. In a trial in which an honourable and a wise man is
concerned, I have been accustomed, not only to consult ray
own judgment, but very much also to be guided by the judg-
ment and inclination of him whom I am defending. For
when ihis cause was brought to me, as to a person who ought
to know the laws on which we are employed, and to which
we devote ourselves, I said at once to Avitus that he was
h2
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164 OICBRO'S ORATIONS.
perfectly safe from the law about " thosp who conspired to-
gether to procure a man's condemnation;" but that our order
was liable to be impeached under that law. And he began to
beg and entreat me not to defend him by urging points of
law. And when I said what I thought, he brought me over
to his opinion ; for . he afl&rmed with tears that he was not
more desirous of retaining his freedom as a citizen, than of
preserving his character. I complied with his wishes, and
yet I did it (for it is not a thing which we ought to do at all
times) because I saw that the cause itself could be amply
defended on its own merits, without any reference to law at
all. I saw that in this defence, which I now have employed,
there was more dignity, but that in that one which he begged
me not to use, there would be less trouble. But if I
had no other object in view beyond merely gaining this
cause, I shoidd have read the laws to you, and then have
summed up.
LIII. Nor am I moved by that argument which Attius
uses when he says that it is a scandalous thing that, if a
senator should procure a wrongful conviction of any one, he
should be made liable to the laws, but that if a Roman knight
does the same, he should not. Although I should grant to
you that it would be a scandalous thing, (and the fact I will
examine into presently,) still you must inevitably grant to
me that it is a much more scandalous thing that the laws
43hoidd be departed from in that state which is entirely held
together by the laws; for this is the bond of this (fignity
which we enjoy in the republic, this is the foimdation of our
liberty, this is the source of justice. The mind, and spirit,
and wisdom, and intentions of the city are all situated in the
laws. As our bodies cannot, if deprived of the mind, so the
fitate, if deprived of law, cannot use its separate parts, which
are to it as its sinews, its blood, and its limbs. The ministers
of the law are the magistrates ; the interpreters of the law
are the judges; lastly, we are all servants of the laws, for the
very purpose of being able to be freemen. What is the rea-
son, 0 Naso, why you sit in that place 1 What is the power
by which those judges, invested with such dignity, are sepa-
rated from you 1 And you too, 0 judges, how is it that out
of such a multitude of citizens, you with your small numbers
decide on the fortimes of man 1 By what right is it that
Attius said whatever he chose ? W^ y have I bad an oppor-
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FOB A. CLUENTIUS. 165
tunity of speaking at such length 1 What is the meaning of
all these secretaries and lictors, and all the rest of those whom
I see assisting at this investigation ? I think that all these
things take place according to law, and that the whole of this
trial is conducted and governed (as I said before) by the
mind, as it were, of the law. Wh&,t, then, shall we say i Is
this tiie only investigation that is so conducted ] What be-
came of the question of classing Marcus Plsetorius and Calus
Flaminius as assassins 1 What became of th& charge of pecu-
lation brought against Caius Orchinius? or of my oration,
when prosecuting a charge of embezzlement ? or of the speech
of Caius AquiHiuH, before whom a case of bribery is at this
moment being tried 1 or of all the other investigations that
are habitually taking place ? Survey all the different parts of
the republic; you mR see that everything takes place under
the general dominion, and according to the special enactment
of the laws. If any one, 0 Titus Attius, were to wish to pro-
secute you before me as judge, you would cry out that you were
not liable under the law about extortion. Nor would this
demurrer of yours be any confession that you had appro-
priated the money illegally; but it would be merely a refusal
to encounter a labour and a danger which you were not
obliged to encounter by the law.
LIV. Now see what is being done, and what law is laid
down by you. The law, according to the provisions of which
this investigation has been instituted, orders the judge who-
presides over the investigation, that is to say, Quintus Voco-
nius, with the other judges, who are his colleagues, (it means
you, 0 judges,) to make inquiry concerning the fact of poison-
ii^. To make inquiry with respect to whom ? The subject
is interminable. " Whoever has made it, or sold it, or lt)ought
it, or had it in his possession, or administered it" What
does the same law subjoin immediately afterwards ] Read —
" And bring him to a capital trial." Whom ? He who has
conspired? he who has agreed? Not so. What, then, is
meant 1 Tell me. " Whoever is a military tribime of the
four first legions, or a qusestor, or a tribune of the people."
Then all the magistrates are named. " Or who has deUvered
or shall deliver his opinion in the senate." What then ? " If
any one of them has agreed, or shall agree, ha^i conspired, or
shall conspire, to get any one condemned in a criminal triaL**
"Any one of them :" Of whom? Of those, forsooth, who
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1G6 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
have been enumerated above. What does it signify in which
way the law was framed 1 Although it is plain enough, yet
the law itself shows its own meaning; for when it binds all
the world, it uses this expression : " Whoever has committed
or shall commit an act of poisoning." All men and women,
freemen and slaves, are brought under the power of the
court. If, again, it had wished to include conspiracy, it
would have added, " or who has conspired.*' Now it runs,
" And let any one who has conspired, or shall conspire, be
brought to a capital trial, before one who has filled any ma-
gistracy, or who has delivered his opinion in the senate."
Does timt apply to Cluentius 1 Certainly not. Who, then,
is Cluentius 1 He is a man who still does not wish to get
off on a trial by any quibble of law. W^ll, then, I discard
the law. I comply with CluentiusV wishes; still I wills say
a few things which are not connected with my client's case,^
by way of reply to you, 0 Attius. For there is something
in this cause which Cluentius thinks concerns him ; there is
also something which I think concerns me. He thinks it is
for his interest that his defence shoidd rest on the facts and
merits of the case, not on the letter of the law ; but I think
that it concerns me^ not to appear defeated by Attius in any
discussion. For this is not the only cause that I have to
plead ; my labour is at the service of every one who can be
content with my ability as their advocate. I do not wish
any one of those who are present to think, if I remain silent,
that I approve of what has been said by Attius respecting
the law. Wherefore, 0 Cluentius, I am complying with your
wishes in this your cause ; and I do not read any law in this
court, nor do I allege any law in your fe-vour. But I will
not omit those things which I think are expected from me.
LV. It seems to you, 0 Attius, to be a scandalous thing
that every one should not be bound by the same laws. In
the first place, (suppose I do grant to you that it is a most
scandalous thing,) it is an evil of this sort, that it is a proof
that we have need to have the laws altered, not that we are
not to obey the laws while they are in existence. In the next
place, what senator has ever made this complaint, that when,
by the kindness of the Roman people, he had attained i>a
higher rank, he did not think he ought by that promotion to
be put under more severe conditions of law ? How many
advantages are there, which we are without; how many
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FOR A. CLUENTTUS. 167
troubles and annoyances are there which we undergo. — And
alL these thmgs are compensated by the advantages of honour
and dignity. Now apply these same conditions of life to the
equestrian order, and to the other ranks of the state. They
will not endure them ; for they think that fewer incon-
veniences of the laws, and of the courts of justice, ought to be
allotted to them, who have either never been able to moimt
to the higher ranks of the state, or have never tried. And, to
say nothing of all other laws, by which we are bound, and
from which all the other ranks are released, Caius Gracchus
passed this law, " That no one should be circumvented." And
he passed, it for the sake of the common people, not against
the common people. Afterwards Lucius Sylla^ a man who
had not the slightest connexion with the common people,
still, when he was appointing a trial concerning a case of this
sort to take place according to the provisions of this very law,
by which you are sitting as judges at the present moment,
did not dare to bind the Roman people with this new sort of
proceeding, whom he had received free from any such obliga-
tion. But if he had thought it practicable to do so, from the
hatred which he bore the equestrian order, he would not have
been more glad to do anything than to turn the whole fury of
that proscription of his which he let loose upon the old
ludges, on this single tribunal. Nor is there any other object
aimed at now, (believe me, 0 judges, and provide for what
you must provide for,) except the bringing the whole eques-
trian body within the danger of this law. Not that this is
the, object of every one, but of a few. For those senators who
easily keep themselves in integrity and innocence, such as
(T will speak the truth,) you yourselves are, and those others
who have lived free from covetousness are anxious that the
knights, as they are next to the senatorial body in rank, should
also be most closely united to them by community of feeling.
But those who wish to engross all power to themselves, and
to prevent any from existing in any other man, or in any
other rank, think that by holding this single fear over them,
they will be able to bring the Roman knights imder their
power, if it is once established that investigations of this sort
can be held upon those men who have acted as judges. For
they see that the authority of this order is strengthened, they
see that its judicial decisions are approved; but if this fear be
suspended over you they feel confident that they shall be able
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168 G1CER0*S ORATIONS.
to pluck the sting out of your severity. For, who would dare
to decide with truth and firmness in the case of a man pos-
sessed of at all greater power or riches than the generality,
when he sees that he himself may be afterwards prosecuted
with reference to that case, for having been guilty of some
agreement or conspiracy ]
LVI. 0 the gallant men, the Roman knights ! who resisted
that most eminent and most powerful man, Marcus Drusus,
when tribune of the people, when he was aiming at nothing
with respect to the whole body of nobility which existed
at that time, except contriving that they, who had sat a£
judges, might be themselves brought before the court by
proceedings of this sort. Then Caius Flavins Pusio, Cnaeus
Titinnius, Caius Mcecenas, those props of the Eoman people,
and the other men of this order, did not do the same thing
that Cluentius does now, in refiising, because they thought
that they should by that means incur some blame ; but they
most openly resisted, when they demurred to these proceed-
ings, and said openly, with the greatest courage and honesty,
that they might have arrived by the decision of the Eoman
people at the highest rank, if they had chosen to set their
hearts on seeking honours ; that they were aware how much
splendour, how much honour, and how much dignity there
was in that sort of life ; and that they had not despised these
things, but had been content with their own order, which had
been the rank of^ their fathers before them; and that they
had preferred following that tranquil course of life, removed
from the storms of unpopularity, and from the intricacies of
these judicial proceedings. They said, that either the proper
age for offering themselves as candidates for honours 'bought
to be restored to them, or, since that was impossible, that
that condition of life had better remain which they had
followed when they abstained from being candidates ; that it
was unjust that they, who had avoided all the decorations of
those honours, on account of the multitude of their dangers,
should be deprived of the kindness of the people, and yet not
be free from the dangers of these new tribimals; that a
senator could not make this complaint, because he had origi-
nally offered himself as a candidate for them, knowing all the
conditions, and because he had a great many honoui-able
circumstances which in his case might lessen the inconve-
mence, — ^the place, the authority, the dignity it gave him at
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FOB A. OLUENTIUS. 169
home, the name and influence it conferred on him among
/breign nations, the toga prcetexta, the curule chair, the
ensigns of the rank, the forces, the armies, the mihtary com-
mand, the provinces, all which things onr ancestors wished to
be the greatest rewards for virtuous actions, and by them they
wished, also, that there should be the greatest dangers held
out, as a terror to offences. They did not refuse to be prose-
cuted under this law, under which Avitus is now prosecuted,
which was then called the Sempronian law, and now is called
the Cornelian law. For they were aware that the eqaestrian
order is not boimd by that law ; but they were anxious not
to be bound by any new law. Avitus has never demurred
even to this, not to giving an account of his course of life
according to the provisions of a law by which he was not at
all bound. And if this condition pleases you, let us all strive
to have this investigation extended to all ranks and orders
in the city.
LVII. But in the mean time, in the name of the immortal
gods I since we have all our advantages, our laws, our liberty,
and our safety by means of the laws, let us not depart from
the laws. And at the same time let us consider what a scan-
dalous thing it is for the Eoman people to be now pursuing
another object; for them to have entrusted to you the repubUo
and their own fortunes ; to be themselves without any care ;
to have no fear of being bound by the decision of a few
judges, by a law which they have nev^r sanctioned, and by a
form of judicial investigation of which they think themselves
independent For Titus Attius, a virtuous and eloquent yoimg
man, conducts this case in such a manner; saying that all the
citizens are bound by all the laws; and you attend and listen
in silence, as you ought to do.
Aulus Cluentius, a Boman knight, is prosecuted according
to that law by which the senators, and those who have served
magistracies, alone are bound. I, by his desire, am prevented
"from demurring to this and from establishing the main bul-
wark of my defence on the citadel of the law. If Cluentius
gains his cause, as we, relying on your equity, feel sure that
he will, all will believe, what indeed will be the truth, that he
has gained it because. of his innocence, since he has been
defended in such a manner as this ; but in the law, all appeal
to which he discarded, he found no protection at all. Here
now is something which concerns me, as I said before, and
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IVO cicbbd's orations,
which I ought to make good to the satisflEustion of the Boman
people, since my condition of life is such that the whole of
my care and labour is devoted to defending every one from
d^iger. I see how great, and how dangerous, and how boimd-
less a field of investigation is attempted to be opened by the
prosecutors, when they endeavour to transfer that law, which
was framed with reference to our order alone, to the whole
Koman people. And in that law are the words — "Who has
conspired." You see how wide an apphcation that may have.
" Or agreed." That is just as vague and indefinite. " Or con-
sented." But this is not only vague and indefinite, but is also
obscure and imintelligible. "Or given any felse evidence."
Who is there of the common people at Eome, who has ever
given any evidence at all, who is not, as you see, exposed to
this danger, if Titus Attius is to have his own way ? At all
events I assert this positively, that no one will ever give
evidence for the future, if this tribunal is held over the com-
mon people of Rome. But I make this promise to every one,
if by chance any one is brought into trouble by this law, who
is not properly liable to this law, that if he will employ me to
defend him, I will defend his cause by the protection that the
law affords, and that I will prove my case easily to these
judges, or to any others who resemble them, and that I will
use every means of defence with which the law provides me,
which I am now not permitted to use, by the man with whose
wishes I am bound to comply.
LVIII. For I ought not to doubt, 0 judges, that, if a
cause of this sort be brought before you, of a man who does
not come under the provisions of that law, even if he be
\mpopular, or if he seem to be disliked by many, or even if
you hate him yourselves, and are imwUling to acquit him,
still you will acquit him; and you wiU be guided rather by
your sense of duty than by your personal hatred. For it i«
the part of a wise judge, to think that he has just that power
permitted to him by fiie Roman people, which is committed
and entrusted to lum; and to remember that not only is
power given to him, but also that confidence is placed in him:
that he is a man capable of acquitting a man whom he hates,
of condemning one whom he does not hate ; and of always
thinking not what he himself wishes, but what the law and
the obligation of his oath requires of him — of considering
according to what law the defendant is brought before him.
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FOB A. CLUENTIIJa 171
who the defendant is into whose conduct he is inquiring, and
what are the &cts which are heing investigated. All these
things require to he looked at, and also it is the part of a
great and wise man, 0 judges, when he has taken in his hand
his judicial tahlet, to think that he is not alone, and that
it is not lawful for him to do whatever he wishes; but that he
must employ in his deliberations law, equity, religion, and
good faith ; that he must discard lust, hatred, envy, fear, and
all evil passions, and must think that consciousness implanted
in one's mind, which we have received from the immortal
gods, and which cannot be taken from us, to be the most
powerful motive of all. And if that i? a witness of virtuous
counsels and virtuous actions throughout our whole lives, we
shall live without any fear, and in the greatest honour.
If Titus Attius had known these things, or thought of
them, certainly he would not have ventured to Say what he
did assert at great length, that a judge decides whatever he
chooses, and ought not to be bound by the laws. But now
concerning all^these topics I think I have said too much, if
judged by the inclination of Cluentius ; little enough, if we
look to the dignity of the republic ; but quite enough with
reference to your wisdom. There are a few topics remaining,
which because they belonged to your investigation they
thought ought to be considered and urged by them, that
they might not be considered the most worthless of all men,
as tiiey would deserve to be if they brought nothing into the
court but their own personal ill-feeling.
LIX. And that you may see that it is of necessity that I
have urged the topics which I have now been mentioning, at
considerable lengtii, listen to what remains. You will then
xmderstand that all those points of the defence which could
be stated in a few words, have been stated with the greatest
brevity possible.
You have said that an injury was done by the fitmily of my
client to Chseus Decius, a Samnite; him I mean who was pro-
scribed, in his calamity. He was never treated by any one
more liberally than by Cluentius. It was the riches of Clu-
entius that relieved him in his distresses; and he himself, and
all his friends and relations, know it welL You have said
'* that his stewards offered violence to and assaulted the shep-
herds of Ancarius and Paoenus." When sOme dispute (as is
often the case) had arisen in the hills between the shepherds,
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172 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
the stewards of Avitus defended the property and ptivate pos-
sessions of their master. The parties expostulated with one
another, the cause was proved to the satisfaction of the others,
and the matter was settled without any trial or any recourse
to law. You have said, " When a relation of Publius iEHus
had been disinherited by his will, this man, who was no relation
of his, was declared his heir." PubUus iElius acted so from
his knowledge of Avitus's merit. He was not present at the
making of Sie will ; and that will was signed by Oppianicus
as a witness. You have said, "that he refused to pay Florins
a legacy bequeathed to him in the will." That is not the case ;
but as thirty sesterces had been written instead of three
hundred, and as it did not appear to him to have been very
carefully worded, he only wished him to consider what he
received as due to his liberality. He first denied that the
money was legally due, but, having done so, he then paid it
without any dispute. You have said, " that the wife of a
certain Samnite named Coelius was, after the war, recovered
from Cluentius." He had bought the woman as a slave from
the brokers ; but the moment that he heard that she was a
free woman he restored her to Coelius without any action.
You have said, " that there is a man named Ennius, whose
property Avitus is in possession of." This Ennius is a needy
man, a trumper up of false accusations, a hired tool of Oppi-
anicus ; who for many years remained quiet ; then at last he
accused a slave of Avitus of theft ; lately, he began to claim
things from Avitus himself By that private proceeding, he will
not (believe me), though we may perhaps be his advocates,
escape calumny. And also, as it is reported to us, you suborn
an entertainer of many guests, a certain Aulus Binnius,.an inn-
keeper on the Latin road, to say that violence was offered to
him in his own tavern by Aulus Cluentius and his slaves.
But about that man I have no need at present to say any-
thing. If he invited them, as is commonly the case, we will
treat the man so as to make him sorry for having gone out
of his way.
You have now, 0 judges, everything which the prosecutors,
after eight years' meditation, have been able to coUect against
the morals of Aulus Cluentius during his whole life, the man
whom they state to be so hated and unpopular. Charges how
insignificant in their kind ! how false in their facts ! how
briefly replied to I
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FOR A. OLUBNTIUS. 173
LX. Learn now this, which has a reference to your oath,
which belongs to your tribunal, which is a burden the law
has imposed on you, in accordance with which you hare
assembled here, — the law, I mean, about accusations of poison ;
so that all may imderstand in how few words this cause may
be summed up, and how many things have been said by me
which had a great deal to do with the inclination of my client,
but very little with your decision.
It has been urged in the case for the prosecution, that
Caius Vibios Capax was taken off by poison by this Aulus
Cluentius. It happens very seasonably that a man is present,
endowed with the greatest good faith, and with every virtue,
Lucius Plsetorius, a senator, who was connected by ties of
hospitality with, and was an intimate friend of that man
Capax. He iLsed to live with him at Rome ; it was in his
house that he was taken ill, in his house that he died. " But
Cluentius is his heir." I say that he died without a will, and
that the possession of his property was given by the praetor's
edict to this man, his sister's son, a most virtuous young man,
and one held in the highest esteem for honourable conduct,
Nuraerius Cluentius, who is present in court
There is another poisoning charge. They say that poison
was, by the contrivance of Avitus, prepared for this young
Oppianicus, when, according to the custom of the citizens
of Larinum, a large party was dining at his wedding feast ;^
jbhat, as it was being administered in mead, a man of the
name of Balbutius, his intimate friend, intercepted it on its
way, drank it, and died immediately. If I were to deal with
this charge as one that required to be refuted, I should treat
those matters at great length, which, as it is, my speech will
pass over in a few words. What has Avitus ever done that he is
not to be thought a man incapable of such an atrocity as this ?
And what reason had he for being so exceedingly afraid of
Oppianicus, when he could not possibly say a word in this
case, and while siocusers could not possibly be wanting, as long
as his mother was alive 1 which you will soon have proved
to you. Was it his object to have no sort of danger wanting
to his cause, that this new crime was added to it ? But what
opportunity had he of giving him poison on that day, and
in so large a company? Moreover, by whom was it given]
Whence was it got 1 How, too, was the ;5up allowed to be
intercepted 1 WTiy was not another given to him over again 1
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174 CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
There are many arguments which may be urged ; but I will
not appear to wish to urge them, and still not to do so. For
the &cts of the case shall speak for themselyes. I say that
that young man, whom you say died the moment that he had
drank that cup, did not die at all on that day. 0 great and
impudent lie 1 Now see the rest of the truth. I say that he,
having come to the dinner while labouring under an indiges-
tion, and still, as people of that age often do, had not spared
himself, was taken ill, continued ill some days, and so died.
Who is my witness for this fact ? The man who is a witness
also of his -own grief — ^his own father. The &ther, I say, of
the young man himself: he, who, from his grief of mind,
would have been easily inclhied by even the slightest sus-
picion to appear as a witness against Aulus Cluentius, gives
evidence in his favour. Read his evidence. But do you, im-
less it is too grievous for you, rise for a moment, and endure
the pain which this necessary recollection of your trouble
causes you ; on which I will not dwell too long, since, as
became a virtuous citizen, you have not allowed your own
grief to be the cause of distress or of a false accusation to an
innocent man.
[The testimony of BalhviitLS the father is read.']
LXI. There is one charge remaining, 0 judges ; a charge
of such a nature, that you may see from it the truth of what
I said at the beginning of my speech, — ^that whatever misfor-
tune has happened to Aulus Cluentius of late years, whatever
anxiety or trouble he haa at, the present time, has all been
contrived by his mother. You say that Oppianicus was killed
by poison, which was admini3tered to him in bread by some
one of the name of Marcus Asellius, an intimate friend of
his own j and that that was done by the contrivance of
Avitus. Now, in this matter, t ask first of all what reason
Avitus had for wishing to kill Oppianicus. For I admit that
ill-wiU did exist between them ; but men only wish their
enemies to be slain, either because they fear them, or because
tiiey hate them. Now, by fear of what could Avitus have
been influenced, that he should have endeavoured to commit
so great a crime 1 What reason could any one have had for
fearing Oppianicus, already condemned to punishment for his
crimes, and banished from the cityl What did Cluentius
fear ) Did he fear being attacked by a ruined man 1 or being
accused by a convict ? or being injured by the evidence of an
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FOR A. CLUBNTIUS. 175
exile 1 But if, because Avitus hftted him, he, on that a<5count,
did not wish him to live, was he such a fool, as to think that
a life which he was then living, the existence of a convict, of
an exile, of a man abandoned by every onel whom, on
account of his odious disposition, no one was willing to admit
into his house, or to visit, or to speak to, or even to look at ?
. Bid Avitus, then, envy the life of this mani If he had
hated him bitterly and utterly, ought he not to have wished
him to live as long as possible 1 Would an enemy have has-
tened his death, when death was the only refuge which he
had left from his calamity ? If the man had had any virtue
or any courage, he would have killed himself, (as many brave
men have done in many instances, when in similar misfor«
tunes.) How is it possible for an enemy to have wished to
offer to him what he must himself have wished for eagerly ]
For now indeed, what evil has death brought him 1 IJnless,
perchance, we are influenced by fables and nonsense, to think
that he is enduring in the shades below the pimishments of
the wicked, and that he has met with more enemies there
than he left behind here ; and that he has been driven head-
long into the district and habitation of wicked spirits by the
avenging furies of his mother-in-law, of his wife, of his brother,
and of his children. But if these stories are false, as all men
are well aware that they are, what else has death taken from
him except the sense of his misery 1 Come now, by whose
instrumentality was the poison administered 1 By that of
Marcus Asellius.
LXII. What connexion had he with Avitus 1 None — ^nay
rather, as he was a very intimate friend of Oppianious, he was
rather an enemy to Avitus. Did he then pick out that man
whom he knew to be rather xmfriendly to himself, and to be
exceedingly intimate with Oppianicus, to be above all others
the instrument of his own wickedness, and of the other's
danger] In the next place, why do you^ who have been
prompted by pity to undertake this prosecution, leave this
Asellius so long unpunished 1 Why did not you follow the
precedent of Avitus, and have a previous examination, which
should affect him, by means of an investigation into his con-
duct who had administered the poison 1 But now, as for that
circumstance of poison being administered in bread, how im-
probable, how unusual, how Strang a thing it is. Was it
easier than administering it in a cup ) Could it be hid more
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176 OICBRO'S ORATIONS.
secretly in some part of the bread than if it had been all
Hquefied and amalgamated with a potion ? Could it pass more
rapidly into the veins and into every separate part of the
body if it were eaten than if it were drunk 1 Could it escape
notice (if that was thought of) more easily in bread, than in
a cup, when it might then have been so mixed up as to be
whoUy impossible to be separated ] " But he died by a
eudden death." But if that was the case, still that circum-
stance, from the number of men who die in that way, would
not give rise to any well-grounded suspicion of poison. If it
were a suspicious circumstance, still the suspicion would apply
to others rather than to Avitus. But as to that fact itself,
men tell most impudent lies. And that you may see this,
listen to this statement 'of the truth respecting his death,, and
how after his death an accusation was sought for out of it
against Avitus, by his mother.
When Oppianicus was wandering about as a vagabond and
an exile, excluded from every quarter, he went into the Faler-
nian district of Cains Quintilius ; there he first fell sick^ and
had a very violent illness. As Sassia was with him, and as
she was more intimate with a man of the name of Statius
Albius, a citizen of that colony, a man in good health, who
was constantly with her, than that most dissolute husband
could endure, while his fortune was unimpaired, and as she
thought that that chaste and legitimate bond of wedlock was
dissolved by the condemnation of her husband, a man of the
name of Nicostratus, a faithful slave of Oppianicus's, a man
who was very curious and very truth-telling, is said to have
been accustomed to carry a good many tales to his master.
In the meantime, when Oppianicus was becoming convalescent,
and could not endure any longer the profligacy of this Faler-
nian, and after he had come nearer the city,^— for he had some
sort of hired house outside the gates, — he is said to have fallen
from his horse, and, being a man in delicate health before, to
have hurt his side very badly, and having come to the city in
a state of fever, to have died in a few days. This is the manner
of his death, 0 judges, such as to have no suspicious circum-
stance at all attached to it, or if it has any, they must apply to
some domestic wickedness carried on within his own walls.
LXIII. After his death Sassia, that abandoned woman,
immediately began to devise plots against her son. She
determined to have an investigation made into the death
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FOR A. CLUBNTIU8. 177
of her husband. She bought of Aulus Rupilius, whom
Avitus had employed as his physician, a slave of the name of
Strato, as if she were following the example of Avitus in pur-
chasing Diogenes. She said that she was going to investigate
the conduct of this Strato, and of some servant of her own.
Besides that, she begged of that yoimg Oppianicus that slave
Nicostratus, whom she thought to be too talkative, and too
fiiithful to his master, for judicial examination. As Oppianicus
was at that time quite a boy, and as that investigation was
being instituted about the death of his own father, although
he thought that that slavey was a well-wisher both to himself
and to his fe,ther, still he did not venture to refuse anything.
The friends and connexions of Oppianicus, and many also,
of the friends of Sassia herself, honourable men, and accom-
plished in every sense of the word, are invited to attend. The-
investigation is carried on by means of the severest tortures.
When the minds of the slaves had been tried both with hope
and fear, to induce them to say something iu the examination,
still, compelled (as I imagine) by the authority of those who
were present, and by the power of the tortures, they adhered
to the truth, and said that they knew nothing of the matter.
The examination was adjourned on that day, by the advice of
the friends who were present. After a sufficient interval of
time, they are summoned a second time. The examination
is repeated all over again. No degree of the most terrible
torture is omitted. The witnesses who had been summoned
turned away, and could scarcely bear to witness it. The cruel
and barbarous woman began to storm, and to be furious that
her plans were not proceeding as she had hoped that they
would. When the torturer and the very tortures themselves^
were worn out, and still she would not desist, one of the
men who had been summoned as witnesses, a man distin-
guished by honours conferred on him by the people, and
endued with the highest virtue, said that he plainly saw that
the object was not to find out the truth, but to compel them to
give some false evidence. After the rest had diown their
approbation of these words, it was resolved by the unanimous
opinion of them all, that the examination had been carried &r
enough. Nicostratus is restored to Oppianicus ; Sassia goes
t6 Larinum with her friends, grieving, because she thought
that her son would certainly be safe ; since not only no true
accusation could be proved against him, but there could not
VOL. II. N
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178 CIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
be even any &lse suspicion made to attach to hlm^ and
since not only the open attacks of his enemies were unable to
injure him, but even the secret plots of his mother against
hun prored harmless to him. After she came to Larinum,
she, who had pretended to be persuaded that poison had been
previously given to her husband by that man Strato, imme-
diately gave him a shop at Larinimi, properly furnished and
provided for carrying on the business of an apothecary.
LXIV.* One, two, three years did Sassia remain quiet, so
that she seemed rather to be wishing and hoping for some
misfortime to her son, than to be plamiing and contriving any
such thing against him. Then in the meantime, in the con-
sulship of Hortensius and Metellus, in order that she might
persuade Oppianicus, who was occupied about other matters,
and thinking of nothing of the sort, to this accusation, she
betroths to him against his will her own daughter, her whom
she had borne to his fitther-in-law, in order that she might
have him in her power, now that he was bound to her by
this marriage, and also by the hope of her will. Nearly about
the same time, Strato, that great physician, committed a
theft and murder in his owil house in the following manner :
— As there was in his house a chest, in which he knew there
was a good deal of money and gold, he murdered by night
two slaves while they were asleep, and threw their bodies into
a fishpond. Then he cut out the bottom of the chest, and
took out .... sesterces, and five pounds' weight of gold, with
the privity of one of his slaves, a boy not grown up. The
theft being discovered the next day, all the suspicion attached
to those ^ves who did not appear. When the cutting out of
the bottom of the chest was noticed, men asked how that
could have been done 1 One of the friends of Sassia recol-
lected that he had lately seen at an auction, among a lot of
very small things, a crooked and twisted saw sold, with teeth
in every direction ; and by such an instrument as this it
seemed that the bottom of the chest might have been cut
round in the manner in which it was. To make my story
sliort, inquiry is made of the auctioneer. That saw is found
to have become the property of Strato. When suspicion was
excited in this manner, and Strato was openly accused, the
boy who had been privy to the deed got alarmed ; he gave
information of the whole business to his mistress ; the men
were found in the fishpond ; Strato was thrown into prison ;
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FOB /L CLUBNTIUS. 179
and the money, though not all of it, was found in his shop.
A prosecution for theft is commenced against him. For what
else can any one suspect 1 Do you say this, that when a
chest had been pillaged, money taken away, only some of it
recovered, and when men had been murdered, that then an
investigation into the death of Oppianicus was instituted?
Who will you get to believe that 1 What is that you could
possibly allege, that would be Iqss possible 1 In the next
place, to pass over the other poijits, was an investigation made
into the death of Oppianicus three yeai*s after that death ? —
Ay, and being exasperated against him on account of her
former grudge, she then, without the slightest reason, de-
manded that same Nicostratus, in order to submit him to the
question. Oppianicus at first refused. After she threatened
that she would take her daughter away from him, and alter
her will, he, I will not say brought his most faithful servant
to that most cruel woman, for her to subject him to the ques-
tion, but he clearly gave him up to her for pimishment.
LXV. After three years had elapsed, then, the long pro-
jected investigation into the death of her husband was made ;
and what slaves were especially pointed at in the investiga-
tion 1 I suppose some new circumstances were alleged in the
accusation ; some new men were involved in the suspicion.
Strato and Nicostratus were those mentioneii. What ? had
not an ample investigation into their conduct taken place at
Kome ? Was it not so 1 The woman, now mad, not by disease,
but with wickedness, though she had conducted an investiga-
tion at Rome, though it had been resolved, in accordance with
the opinion of Titus Annius, Lucius Eutilius, Publius Sfaturius,
and other most honourable men, that the investigation had
been carried far enough, still, three years afterwards she
attempted to institute an investigation into the conduct of
the same men, allowing, I will not say no man, (lest you
should say by chance that some one of lie inhabitants of the
colony waa present,) but no respectable man to be present ;
and this investigation was in reality directed against the life
of her son. Can you say, (for it occurs to me to think what
possibly can be said, even if it has not been said as yet,) that
when the investigation about the robbery was proceeding,
Strato made some confession respecting the poisoning 1 By
this single means, 0 judges, truth, though kept under by the
wickedness of many, often raises its head, and the defence
n2
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180 Cicero's orations.
which has been cut away from innocence gets breathing-
time ; either_because they who are cunning in devising fraud,
do not dare to execute all that they devise, or because they
whose audacity is conspicuous and prominent, are destitute
of the craftiness of malice. But if cunning were bold, or
audacity crafty, it would scarcely be possible to resist them.
Was there no robbery committed] Nothing was more noto-
rious at Larinum. Did no suspicion attach to Strato ? On
the contrary, he was accused on account of the circumstance
of the saw, and he was also informed against by the boy
who was his accomplice. Was that not stated in the in-
vestigation 1 Why, what other reason was there for making
the investigation at all? Did Strato then, (this is what
you ^e bound to say, and wliat Sassia was constantly
saying at that time,) while the investigation was going on
about the robbery, while imder the torture, make any
confession about the poisoning 1 Behold now, here is the '
case which I have just mentioned. The woman abounds
in audacity, she is deficient in contrivance and in ability.
For many documents of what came out in the investiga-
tion are preserved, which have been read to you, and
made public, those very documents which he said were then
sealed up j and in all these documents there is not one
letter about theft. It never once occurred to her to write
out the first speech of Strato about the robbery, and after
that, to add to it some expression about poisoning, which
might seem not to have been extracted by any interrogatory,
but to have been wrung fi:om him by pain. The investigation
into the robbery was superseded by the suspicion of the
poisoning, which was a previous subject for investigation,
which this very woman herself had pointed out ; who, after
she had come to the resolution (being compelled thereto by the
opinion of her Mends,) that the examination had been pushed
for enough, for three years afterwards loved that man Strato
above all the other slaves, and held him in the greatest
honour, and loaded him with all sorts of kindnesses. When,
therefore, the investigation into a robbery was going on,
and that robbery too which he, beyond (Hspute, had com-
mitted, did he then abstain firom saying a word about that
which was the subject of the investigation, but at once say
something about the poisoning 1 And did he never say one
word at all about the robbery, (even if not at the time when
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FOR A. CLUENTIXTS. 181
he ought to have said it, still) either at the end, or middle,
at any part whatever of liis examination 1
LXVI. You see now, 0 judges, that that wicked woman,
with the same hand with which she would murder her son, if
it were in her power, has made up this false report of the ex-
amination. And who, I should like to know, has signed
this report of the examination 1 Name any one person. You
will find no one except perhaps a man of that sort, whom I
would rather mention than have no one named. What do
you say, 0 Titus Attiusi will you bring before the court
matter involving danger to a man's life, will you bring for-
ward the information laid with respect to this wickedness,
and the fortunes of another, all written down in this docu-
ment, and yet refuse to name the author of this document,
or the witness, or any one who will in any respect confirm it %
And will such men as these judges, before whom we stand,
approve of this destruction which you have drawn forth out
of the mother's bosom against her most innocent son 1 Be it
so then ; these documents have no author. What next ?
Why is not the investigation itself reserved for the judges ;
for the friends and connexions of Oppianicus, whom she had
invited to be present before, and for this identical time?
What was done to these men, Strato and Nicostratus ? I aiSsk
of you, 0 Oppianicus, what you say was done to your dave
Nicostratus 1 whom you, as you were shortly about to accuse
this man, ought to have taken to Rome, to have given him an
opportunity of giving information ; lastly, to have preserved
him imhurt for examination, to have preserved him for these
judges, and to have preserved him for this time. For,
0 judges, know that Strato was crucified, having had his
tongue cut out ; for there is no one of all the citizens of
Larinum who does not know this. That frantic woman was
afraid, not of her own conscience, not of the hatred of her
fellow-citizens, not of the reports flying about among every-
body ; but, as if every one was not likely to be hereafter the
witness of her wickedness, she was afraid of being convicted
by the last words of a dying slave.
What a prodigy is tliis, 0 ye immortal gods 1 What shall we
say of this enormity ? What shall we call this enormous and
inhuman wickedness, or whpre shall we say it has its birth 1
For now, in truth, you see, 0 judges, that I did not, at the
beginning of my oration, say what I did about his mother
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182 ClCERO's ORATIONS.
without the strongest and most unavoidable necessity; foi
there is no evil, no wickedness, which she has not from the
very beginning wished, and prayed for, and planned and
wrought against her son. I say nothing of that first injury
which she did him through her lust — I say nothing of her
nefarious marriage with her son-in-law — I say nothing of her
daughter driven from her husband by the profligate desires
of her mother, — ^because they have relation, not ta the existing
danger of his life to my client, but to the common disgrace
of the family. I say nothing of the second marriage with
Oppianicus, to ensure which she first received from him his
dead sons as hostages, and then married, to the grief of the
family, and the destruction of her stepsons. I pass over
how, when she knew that Aurius Mehnus, whose mother-in-law
she had formerly been, and whose wife she had been a Httle
before that, had been proscribed and murdered by the con-
trivance of Oppianicus, she chose for herself that place as the
abode and home of her married state, in which she might
every day behold the proofs of the death of her former hus-
band, and the spoils of his fortune. This is what I complain
of first of all, — ^that wickedness which is now at length
thoroughly revealed, of the poisoning of Fabricius; which,
being then recent, was suspicious to others, incredible to him,
but which now appears plain and evident to everybody. In
fact, his mother is hardly concealed in that act of poisoning;
nothing was devised by Oppianicus without tlie counsel of
that woman ; and unless that had been the case, certainly
she would not afterwards, when the afifeir was detected, have
departed from him as from a wicked husband, but she would
have fled from him as from a most pitiless enemy, and she
would have for ever left that house overflowing with every
imaginable wickedness. She not only did not do that, but
from that time forth she omitted no opportunity of planning
some treachery or other, but day and night, she, a mother,
directed all her thoughts to compassing the destruction of,
her son. But first, in order to confirm Oppianicus in his
resolution of becoming the accuser of her son, she bound
him to her by gifts and presents, by giving him her daughter
in marriage, and by the hope of her inheritance.
LXVII. Therefore, among other people too, when sudden
enmities have arisen between relations, we often see .divorces
and ruptures of connexions take place; but this woman
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FOR A. OLUENTIUS. 183
thought that no one could be sufficiently relied upon as the
pro^cutor of her son^ unless he first married his sister. Other
men, induced by new connexions, often lay aside their ancient
enmities ; she tiiought that a connexion with the femily would
be a pledge to ensiu^ the strengthening of enmity. And she
was not only diligent in providing an accuser for her son, but
she also planned how to furnish him with the requisite wea-
pons. HencQ were all those tamperings with the slaves, both
by means of threats and of promises j hence those repeated
and cruel investigations into the death of Oppianicus; to
which at last it was not the moderation of the woman, but
the authority of her friends that put a limit From the
same wickedness proceeded that investigation conducted at
Larinum three years afterwards. The Mee reports of the
investigation were fabricated by the same frantic criminality.
From that same frenzy proceeded also that abominable cutting
out of her victim's tongue ; and lastly, the whole contrivance
of this accusation has been managed and carried out by her.
And when she had herself sent the accuser armed with all
these weapons against her son to Rome, she remained herself
a little while at Larinimi, for the sake of seeking out and
hiring witnesses. But afterwards, when news was brought to
her that this man's tiial was coming on, she immediately flew
hither, to prevent any diligence being wanting on the part of
the accusers, or any money to the witnesses ; or perhaps lest
she, as his mother, should lose this sight which she had so
eagerly desired, of this man's mourning habit, and grie^ and
melancholy condition.
LXVIII. But now, what sort of journey do you think
that woman had to Eome ? which I, by means of the neigh-
bourhood of the people of Aquinum and Venafrum, heard
and ascertained from many people. What throngings of the
people were there in these cities ! what groanings of men and
women ! that a woman should go from Larinum, should go
all the way from the Adriatic to Rome, with a large retinue,
and great sums of money, in order to be the more easily able
to convict and oppress by a capital charge, falsely trumped up,
her own son 1
There was not one of all those people (I may almost say)
who did not think that every place required purifying, by
which she had passed on her journey ; no one who did not
think the very earth itself, the common mother of us all.
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184 CIOBRO'S OBATIONS.
polluted by the footsteps of that wicked mother. Accord-
ingly, she could not stay long in any city; of all that number
of people, who might have been her entertainers, not one was
found who did not flee from the contagion of her sight. She
trusted herself to night and solitude, rather than to any
city or to any host. But now, which of us does she think
is ignorant of what she is doing, of what she is contriving, of
what she is thinking ? We know whom she ^ has addressed
herself to, whom she has promised money to, whose good
feith she has endeavoured to undermine by means of bribes.
Moreover, we are acquainted with her nocturnal sacrifices,
which she thinks are secret, and her wicked prayers, and her
abominable vows ; in which she makes even the immortal
gods to be witnesses of her wickedness, and does not perceive
that the minds of the gods are propitiated by piety, by religion,
and holy prayers, not by a polluted superstition, nor by vic-
tims slain to conciliate their sanction for acts of wickedness
This insanity and barbarity of hers I may well feel sure that
the immortal gods have rejected with disgust from their altars
and temples.
LXIX. Do you now, 0 judges, whom fortune has appointed
to be a sort of other gods, as it were, to Aulus Cluentius, my
chent, throughout his whole life, ward oflf this savage attack
of his mother from her son's head. Many men, while sitting
as judges, have pardoned the sins of the children out of pity
for the parents ; — ^we now entreat you, not to give up the
most virtuously spent life of this man to the inhumanity of
his mother, especially when you may see all his fellow-citizens
in his municipality on the other side of the question. Know
all of you, 0 judges, (it is a most incredible statement, but
fitill a perfectly trae one,) that all the men of Larinum, who
have been able to do so, have come to Rome, in order by
their zeal, and by the display of their numbers, to comfort
this man as far aa they could, in this his great danger ; know
that that town is at the present moment delivered to the
keeping of children and women, and that it is now, at this
time of common peace over Italy, defended by its domestic
forces only. But even those who are left behind are equally
eager with those whom you see present here, and are harassed
day and night by anxiety about the result of this triaL They
think that you are going to deliver a decision, not about the
fortunes of one of their citizens, but about the condition, and
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FOR A. CLUENTIUS. 186
the dignity, and all the advantages of the whole municipality.
For the industry of that man in the common service of the
mimicipelity is extreme, 0 judges ; his kindness to each indi-
vidual citizen, and his justice and good faith towards all men,
are of the highest order. Besides, he so preserves his high
rank among his countrymen, and the position which he has
inherited &om his ancestors, that he equals the gravity, and
wisdom, and popularity, and character for liberality of his
ancestors. Therefore they give their public testimony in his
favour, in words which signify not only their opinion of, and
their esteem for him, but also their own anxiety of mind and
grief. And while their panegyric is being read, I beg of you,
who have brought it hither, to rise up.
[The panegyric on Cluentius, in pursuance of the resolution of
the senators of Larvnum^ is read!]
From the tears of these men, you, 0 judges, may easily
imagine that the senators did not pass these resolutions
without tears. Come now, how great is the zeal of his neigh-
bours in his behalf, how incredible their good-will towards
him, how great their anxiety for him. They have not, indeed,
sent resolutions drawn up in papers of panegyric, but they
have chosen their most honom^able men, whom we are all
acquainted with, to come hither in numbers, and to give their
personal, evidence in his favour. The Frentani are present,
most noble men. The Marrucini, a tribe of equal dignity,
are present too. You see Eoman knights, most honourable
men, come to praise him from Teanum in Apulia, and from
Luceria. Most honoiurable panegyrics have been sent from
Bovianum, and from the whole of Samnium, and also the
most honourable and noble men of these states have come
too. As for those men who have farms in the district of
Larinum, or business as merchants, or flocks and herds,
honourable men and of the highest character, it is impossible
to say how eager and anxious they are. It seems to me that
there are not many men so beloved by a single individual as
he is by all these nations.
LXX. How I wish that Lucius Yolusienus were not absent
from my client's trial, a man of the greatest virtue and most
exalted character ! How I wish that I could say that Publius
Helvidius Eufus was present, the most accomplished of all
the Boman knights ! who, while, in this man*s cause, he
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186 Cicero's orations.
was kept awake night and day, and while he was instructjpg
me in many of the facts of this case, has been stricken with
a severe and dangerous iUness ; but even while in this state
of suffering, he is not less anxious for the acquittal of Clu-
entius than for his own recovery. You shall witness the equal
zeal of Cnfieus Tudicius, a senator, a most virtuous and honour-
able man, shown both in giving evidence and in uttering an
encomium on him. We speak with the same hope, but with
more diffidence, of you, 0 Publius Volumnius, since you are
one of the judges of Aulus Cluentius. In short, we assert to
you that the good-will of all his neighbours towards this man
is unequalled. His mother alone opposes the zeal of all these
men, and their anxiety and diligence in his behalf, and my
labour, who, according to the rules of old times, have pleaded
the whole of this cause by myself, and also your equity,
0 judges, and your merciful dispositions. But what a mother !
One whom you see hurried on, blinded by cruelty and wicked-
ness,— whose desires no amount of infamy has ever restrained,
— ^who, by the vices of her mind, has perverted all the laws 6f
men to the foulest purposes, — whose folly is such, that no one
can call her a human being, — whose violence is such, that
no one can call her a woman, — ^whose barbarity is such, that
no one can call her a mother. And she has changed even
the names of relationships, and not only the name and laws
of nature : the wife of her son-in-law, the mother-in-law of
her son, the invader of her daughter's bed ! she has come to
such a pitch, that she has no resemblance, except in form, to
a human creature.
Wherefore, 0 judges, if you hate wickedness, prevent the
approach of a mother to a son's blood ; inflict on the parent
this incredible misery, of the victory and safety of her chil-
dren ; allow the mother (that she may not rejoice at being
deprived of her son) to depart defeated rather by your
equity. But if, as your nature requires, you love modesiy,
and beneficence, and virtue, then at last raise up this your
suppliant, 0 judges,, who has been exposed for so many
years to imdeserved odium and danger, — who now for the
first time, since the banning of that fire kindled by the
actipns and fanned by the desires of others, has begun to
raise his spirits firom the hope of your equity, and to breathe
awhile after the alarms he has sufiered, — all whose hopes
depend on you,- -whom many, indeed, wish to be saved, but
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FOR A. CLUBNTIUB. 187
whom you alone have the power to save. Avitus prays to
yoii, 0 judges, and with tears implores you, not to abandon
him to odium, which ought to have no power in courts of
justice j nor to his mother, whose vows and prayers you are
bound to reject from your minds; nor to Oppianious, that
infamous man, ahready condenmed and dead.
LXXI. But if any misfortune in this trial should over-
throw this innocent man, verily, that miserable man, 0
judges, if indeed (which will be hard for him) he remains
alive at all, wiU complain frequently and bitterly that that
poison of Fabricius was ever detected. But if at that time
that information had not been given, it would have been to
that most imhappy man not poison, but a medicine to relieve
him from many distresses; and, lastly, perhaps even his
mother would have attended his funeral, and would have
feigned to mourn, for the death of her son. But now, what
will have been gained by his escape then, beyond making his
life appear to have been preserved from the snares of death
which then surrounded him for greater grief, and beyond
depriving him when dead of a place in his father's tomb 1 He
has been long enough, 0 judges, in misery. He has been years
enough struggling with odium. No one has been so hostile
to him, except his parent, that we may not think his ill-will
satisfied by this time. You who are just to all men, who, the
more cruelly any one is. attacked, do the more kindly protect
him, preserve Aulus Cluentius, restore him iminjured to his
mimicipality. Restore him to his friends, and neighbours, and
connexions, whose eagerness in his behalf you see. Bind all
those men for ever to you and to your children. This busi-
ness, 0 judges, is yours; it is worthy of your dignity, it is
worthy of your clemency. This is rightly expected of you,
to release a most virtuous and innocent man, one dear and
beloved by many men, at last from these his misfortimes ; so
that all men may see that odium and Action may be excited
in popular assemblies, but that in courts of justice there is
room only for truth.
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188 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
THE
FRAGMENTS OF THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO
IN DEFENCE OF CAIUS CORNELIUS.
THE AfiaUMENT.
Caius Cornelius had been quaestor to CnaBus Pompeius, and afterwards
had been tribune of the people in the consulship of Piso. He had
been alienated from the senate by their rejection of some severe laws
which he had proposed to check the system of usury by which he said
tiiat the provinces were drained of their treasures. Out of revenge he
proposed other laws, having for their object the curtailment of the
power of the senate. And in retaliation now, many of the most
influential senators encouraged the institution of a prosecution of him
for practices against the state in his late tribunate, and especially for
some acts of peculation, which they said brought him under the pro-
X visions of the Lex Majestatis. ^ Some of the most influential of the sena-
tors, such as Quintus Hortensius, Quintus Catulus, Quintus Metellus
Pius, Lucius Lucullus, and Marcus Lcpidus, gave evidence against him.
The cause was tried before Gallius, the praetor. The trial lasted four
days, and Cicero spoke two speeches ii^ it, of which nothing has come
down to us but a few fragments of the first, and a very few lines in-
deed of the second.
• * * He was first presented before me as praetor, on
a charge of extortion. Cominius, forsooth, hsi^ a clear fore-
sight of what the real object in view is ; that men of straw,
^ ''Majestas is defined by Ulpian to be 'crimen illud quod adversus
populum Bomannm vel adversus seeuritatem ejus committitur.' . . . The
word Majestas properly signifies the magnitude or greatness of a thing.
' Majestas,* says Cicero (Part. 30)« ' est quaedam magnitude populi Romani.'
Accordingly, the phrases ' Majestas populi Romani,' * Imperii majestas,'
signify the whole of that which constituted the Soman state; in other
words, the sovereignty of the Soman state. The expression * minuere
majestatem,' consequently signifies any act by which this majestas is
impaired ; and is thus defined by Cicero. (De Invent ii. 17.) * 3fige8-
tatem minuere est de dignitate, aut ampUtudine, aut potestate popnli,
sut eorum quibus populus potestatem dedit, aliquid derogare.' In the
republican period the term ' migestas l8esa,'or 'minuta,'was most com-
monly applied to cases pf a general betraying or surrendering his army
to the enemy, exciting sedition, and generally by his bad conduct in
administration impairing the miyestas of the state. . . .
"The old punishment of majestas was perpetual interdiction from firs
and water."— Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 588, v. Majestas,
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FOR C. CORNELIUS. 189
forsooth, are pushed forward in front to make experiment
with. *♦*•♦♦
What 1 when Metellus, a man of the highest rank and the
purest virtue, had twice given his evidence on oath, — once
with reference to some private afi&irs of his own, on behalf of
his &ther, and a second time in his public capacity ; was it
because he was compelled by the law that he desisted from
his accusation, or did the power of truth constrain him 1 It
is a case in which the virtue and dignity of Caius Curio takes
away all suspicion ; and so does the youth of Quintus Metel-
lus, embellished as it is with every quality calculated to
attract the highest and most universal praise.
Cornelius, says he, gave a law in conjunction with Manilius,
about the votes of freedmen. What does this word gave
mean 1 Did he pass such a law, or propose*it, or speak in
&vour of it 1 For it is ridiculous to say that he passed it; as if
it were a law difficult to draw up, or very subtle to imagine;
a law, too, which was not only framed a few years ago, but
actually passed at that time. ♦ » *
And in this many things were found fia,ult with, and espe-
cially the rapidity of the legal proceedings. * * *
But he begged of me whUe I was preetor, with the greatest
earnestness, to defend the cause of Manilius. * ♦ *
\He is speaking now of the tribuneship of Manilius!]
For he, when, as tribune of the people, he had passed two
laws in his year of office, one a mischievous law, the other an
admirable one, the one which was injurious to the main
interests of the republic was discarded by the tribune him-
self,, but the good one, whic& is still in existence to the great
advantage of the republic, was passed very irregularly.
* * * * * *
He was instigated to that mad course by other prompters
of great eminence, who wished a most mischievous precedent
for disturbing judicial decisions to be established, one very
well suited to their necessities, but utterly foreign to all my
ideas of governments. ♦ ♦ * * *
I am able to affirm that that man, so eminent for the
highest wisdom, Caius Cotta, himself made a motion in the
senate for the abrogation of his own laws. ♦ * *
I can also produce a law of that same Cotta about decisions
in civil cases, abrogated by his own brother the year after it
had been passed. * ♦ ♦
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190 Cicero's orations.
I see that it is agreed on all hands that the Licinian and
Mutian Law, about the regulation of the citizens^ which the
two wisest consuls that we have seen in our time passed, was
not only useless, but even mischievous to the republic.
There are in aJl four kinds of resolutions, 0 ju(%es, by which
any determination is expressed by the senate with respect to
the laws, according to the principles of our ancestors. One is
in this form, — ^that it seems fit that the law should be re-
pealed, as in the consulship of Quintus Csecilius and Marcus
Junius it was voted that flie laws which were a hindrance to
the military service of the state should be repealed.
Another, when a law is passed, that the people shall not be
. bound by that law, as happened in the consulship of Lucius
Marcius and Sextus Julius with reference to the Livian laws.
* %♦ * ♦ ♦ ♦
There is a third way of proceeding about the repeal of laws,
in which there afe often formal decrees of the senate passed,
as was lately done in the case of the Calpurnian Law itself
which was repealed.
Publius Africanus the elder, as it is said, was often blamed,
not only by the wisest men of that day, but by himself also,
because, when he was consul with Titus Longus, he had per-
mitted the seats of the senators to be for the first time sepa-
rated firom the place where the people sat*
******
There is especially the law giving the power of veto, when
a law is being proposed, as long as it is not passed ; while
those who have met for the purpose of voting are tossed about
here and there— while private individuals are speaking, while
the voting tablets are being distributed, while the ballot-box
is being carried roimd, while the votes are being counted,
while tiie voting is taking place, and other things of this
kmd. * * * * * * -
But one thing which was done, while this man himself was
tribune, ought not to be passed over. For it is not a stronger
measure to read a document, when the vete is interposed,
than to carry down the ballot-box with the tribune who inter-
poses; nor is it a more serious thing to begin to propose
a thing, than to propose and carry it ; nor is it more violent
conduct to show that he will pass a law against the will of his
colleague, than to strip his colleague of his office ; nor is it
^ This refers to the seats at the Ludi Bomani, and this separation was
made in the second consulship of Africanus, ▲. v. o. 560.
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FOR e, CORNELIUS. 191
more like the conduct of an accn&or to summon the tribes to
adopt a law, than to summon them for the purpose of re-
ducing his colleague to the station of a private individual ; all
which things that brave man Aulus Gabinius, this man*s col-
league, did in a just cause ;^ and when he was bringing safety
to file Roman people, an end of slavery and of a long captivity
and disgrace to all nations, he would not endure the voice and
will of one of his colleagues to have more weight t"ban that of
the- whole city. * * / * * *
But they made a motion about correcting the law. *
I also, if this very law, which Caius Cornelius passed, had not
prevented me, shoidd have proposed that which those de-
fenders of the tribunals have been openly contending for, — •
namely, a resolution that the senate did not approve of that
decision being come to respecting the property of Sylla, which
cause I advocated in a very different manner in the public
assembly when I was praetor ; saying what those same judges
decided afterwards, that the decision ought to be come to at a
time when people could be more impartial * * *
But formerly, how many decisions were overturned I will not
now say, both because you know, and in order that my speech
may not seem to bring any one back before the court.
* * * * * . * .
Cnaeus Dolabella would not have deprived Caius Volcatius,
a most honourable /man, of the common every-day privileges
which are the right of every one.
Lastly, Lucius Sisenna, a man very unlike to them in his
course of life and his prudence, but still too free in straining
the law to gratify some people, would not have given by his
edict possession of the property of Cneeus Cornelius to Publius
Sdpio, a youth of the most illustrious &.mily and the most
eminent virtue. * ♦ ♦ *
As, therefore, the Roman people both saw the bribery, and
had it proved to them by the tribunes of the people, that,
*■ Originally, vhen one member of the College of Tribunes opposed
a resolution of his colleagues, nothing could be done, and the measure
wag dropped ; but this useful check was removed by the example of
Tiberius Gracchus, in which a precedent was given for proposing to the
public, that a tribune obstinately persisting in his veto should be
deprived of his office. Vide Cic Leg. iii. 10. Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 990,
voc. Tribunes.
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192 ClCERO'S ORATIONa
unless punishments were enacted against the agents of cor-
ruption, it could not possibly be put an end to, they demanded
this law of Cornelius, and repudiated that one which was
proposed in accordance with the resolution of the senate.
♦ * ♦ * ♦ ♦
that we might see that spectacle of two consuls elect,
wholesome ^nd necessary in our distress, imder such circum-
stances, and at so critical a time, but miserable and fetal in
its kind, and by the precedent which it established.
Why should I now reply to you by express arguments to
prove that it is possible that there should be some other
Cornelius who has a Phileros ? It is notorious enough that
Phileros is a common name, and that there are so many
Comelii that a college of them might be founded.
But you, 0 Caius Cornelius, in that extreme and difficult
moment compelled the consul to utter these words, that who-
ever was anxious for the salvation of the republic, must be
presedt to give his sanction to that law.
He says that the common people were defeated and subdued
by their disappointment in the matter of Manilius * * *'
so that one could do nothing by himself against a multitude;
and the other was far away. *****
So much virtue then existed in those men, that, sixteen
years after the expulsion of the kings, they seceded on account
of the imperious conduct of the nobles, themselves restored
their sacred laws, created two tribunes, and consecrated in
the eternal memory of ages that mount on the other side of
the Anio, which is called to this day the Sacred Mount, on
which they had taken up a position in arms ; and in the
ensuing year ten tribunes of the people were created at the
Comitia Curiata,' after a solemn taking of the auspices.
Then, having exchanged reciprocal promises, through the
intervention of three ambassadors,^ men of the highest cha-
racter, they returned in arms to Rome. They took up a
position on the Aventine Hill ; from thence they came armed
into the Capitol ; and they elected ten tribimes of the people,
the pontifex presiding at the Comitia, because there were no
magistrates.
I jpass over, also, these more recent things ; I call the
* Vide Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 272, v. Comitia,
* Their names were Spurius Tarpeius, Caius Julius, and Publius
Sulpicius, all three men of consular rank.
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FOB 0. OOBNELIUS. 193
foundation of the most just liberty the Cassian law ;* by which
law the force and power of the suffrages of the people obtained
their proper authority, and the second Cassian law which
ratified the decisions of the people. ♦ ♦ ♦
They who, not only in the time of Sylla, but also after he
was dead, thought that they ought always to cling to this
privilege with all their might, were the greatest enemies of
Caius Cotta, because he, when he was consul, added not only
some power, but also some dignity to the triJbunes. * * *
As long, then, as the common people is disposed to us as it
showed that it was, when it not oi^y accepted the Aurelian
and Roscian laws, but even demanded them, ♦ ♦ ♦
I recollect, when first the senators were united with the
Eoman knights as judges according to the Plotian law, that a
man detested by the gods and by the nobles, Cnseus Pompeius,
was tried for treason according to the provisions of the Cas-
sian law. * ♦ • • • •
THE FRAGMENTS OF THE SECOND SPEECH FOR
CORNELIUa
Do you hesitate, then, as to the point who these witnesses
are ? I will tell you two of them ; the rest are men of con-
sular rank, enemies of the power of the tribunes ; and besides
those, a few of their flatterers and tools follow them. • *
which your uncle, a most illustrious man, descended firom
a most Olustrious &,ther, grand&ther, and ancestors, in silence,
I believe, with the good wishes of the nobles, and when no one
was prepared to interpose his veto, gave to the Roman people,
and took away from the colleges of most powerful men,
namely, the power of electing the priests. * * *
What more ) The same Domitius harassed with all the
power belonging to a tribune of the people, Marcus Silanus,
a man of consular rank.
This dispute is of this nature, that a tribune of the people,
CnflBus Domitius ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
* The Cassian law was one of the tdbeUaricB leges ; it was proposed by
the tribune Lucius Cassius Longinus, b.o. 137, and introduced the
ballot in the judicium populi in most cases. It was supported by Scipio
Africanus the younger, for which he was censured by the ariatocratical
party.
VOL. n. o
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194 OICBRO'S 0BATT0N8.
THE
FRAGMENTS OF THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO.
IV HIS WHITB QOWS,
AGAINST C. ANTONIUS AND L. CATILINA,
HI8 OOXPETITOBS FOB THE OOHSULSHIP.
PKLIYEBEB IK THE SENATE.
THE ABGUXENT.
This oration was delivered the year after the speech for Cornelius had
been spoken. Cicero being now in his forty-third year, and of the
proper legal age, declared himself a candidate for the consulship the
ensuing year. He had six competitors, Publius Sulpicius Gkilba, Lucius
Sergius Catilina, Caius Antonius, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Quintus
Comificius, and Caius Licinius Sacerdos. Cicero was Uie only notma
homo among them. Antonius and Catilina were the most formidable
of his rivals, having coalesced together against him, and being both
supported by the joint influence of Crassus and Caesar. They
practised snch open bribery, that the senate thought it necessary
to check the practice by a new and rigorous law. But this law
was vetoed by Quintus Mucius Orestinus, one of the tribunes of the
people, in spite of his great obligations to Cicero, who had de-
fended him on a criminid trial In a debate which arose in the
senate about the power of this veto of Orestinus, Cicero rose, and after
some expostulation with Orestinus, broke into a severe invective
against Antonius and Catilina, in this oration, of which only a few
fragments remain. It is called the oration ** in a white gown," because
a white gown was the proper habit of all candidates, from which indeed
their name was derived.^
I SAT, 0 Conscript Fathers, that on the night before Ct^tiline
and Antony with their agents met at the house of some man
of noble birth, one very well known from, and habituated to,
gains derived from this sort of liberality,
'[He means either the house of Csesar, or of Crassus;
for they were the most eager adversaries of Cicero, out of
^ From eandidust white.
' The notes in parenthesis are the commentary of Asconius, printed
in brackets in the text of Orellius, abridged where I have thought it
advisable.
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AGAINST 0. ANTONIUS AlH) L. OATILINA. 195
jealousy at the influence which he was acquiring among the
citizens. And Cicero accused Crassus of having been the
original instigator of that conspiracy which, in the consul-
ship of Cotta and Torquatus, the year before this raeech
was delivered, had been formed by Catiline and Piso.J
* * * * * *
For what Mend or client can that man have, who has mur-
dered so many citizens 1 and who said that he would not try
a cause against a foreigner on fair terms in his own city )
* « « * * »
[Cicero afterwards charges Catiline with having behaved
witti great personal cruelty in the civil wars between Sylla
and Marius, in which he had been a partisan of Sylla.
He had murdered Quintus Ceecilius, Marcus Yolumnius,
and Lucius Tantasius ; and had cut off the head of
Marcus Marius Gratidianus, a man who had been twice
praetor, and had carried it through the streets of the city
in his own hand ; which is a deed which Cicero often
reproached him with throughout this speech. And Anto-
nius had plundered numbers of people in Achaia ; so
that the Greeks whom he had plundered prosecuted him
before Marcus Lucullus the praetor. He had been expelled
the senate by the censors Lucius Gellius Poplicola and
CnsBus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, six years before; who
had stated as their reason, that he had plundered the allies,
evaded a trial, and that he was so much in debt that he had
mortgaged the whole of his property.]
* * * « • *
Nor did he even then look to himself, when he was censured
by every weighty resolution of yours.
* «****
J Catiline had been prsetor, and after his prsetorship had
. Africa for his province, which he had oppressed so
severely, that ambassadors were sent by the Africans to
complain to the senate of his conduct.]
He learnt how great is the power of the courts of justice
when he was acquitted ; if indeed his was to be called a trial,
or his escape an acquittal
^ * * * « * *
[The year before, Catiline, on his return from Africa, had
been prosecuted for extortion by Clodius, then a young man.
o2
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196 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
He had been defended by Cicero,' according to Fenestella,
which I doubt, because Cicero makes no mention of it^
though it would have been a good subject for him to
reproach Catiline with ; and as he does reproach his com-
petitor Antonius with ingratitude.]
■^* * * «« ♦
[What follows next is addressed to Antonius.]
Do you not know that I was elected the first praetor 1* but
that you were only raised fix)m your position of lowest on the
list to that of third, by the concession of your competitors,
by the union of the centuries, and especially by my kindness I
♦ «♦**♦
[Quintus Mucins, who is addressed in the next paragraph,
was a tribune of the people, and he had interposed to
prevent the law against bribery firom being carried, which
he was supposed to have done to gratify Catiline.]
**«■»«*
But I am indignant, 0 Quintus Mucins, that you sliould
have so bad an opinion of the republic as to deny yesterday
that I was worthy of the consulship. What ? Is the Roman
people less competent to exert due diligence in choosing a
defender for itself than you are for yourself] For you, when
Lucius Calenus was prosecuting you for robbery, you pre-
ferred having me above all men as the advocate of yoiur
fortunes. And can the Roman people be guided by your
advice to reject the man as its defender in the most honourable
causes, whose advice you had recourse to in the most in-
£unous one) Unless, perhaps, you will say this, that at the
time that you were prosecuted for robbery by Lucius Calenus
you saw that I was able to be of very littie use to yoiL»
******
He disgraced himself by every sort of lewdness and profli-
1 Asconius doubts this, and says it rests only on the authority of
Fenestella, but Cicero speaks of his intention to do so in a letter to
Atticns. (Epist. ad Att L 2.) Middleton agrees with Asconius. See
below, note 8.
* Sylla had increased the number of the pnetors to eight; the praetor
urbanus was first in rank.
* Asconius urges here that as he reproaches Mucins with haying
fbrgotten his kindness to him, and also reproaches Antonius with the
same forgetfulness, he would certainly not have spared Catilina if he had
tehWj defended him. This argument, however, loses much of its
force if we recollect how small a portion of this oration we have.
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AGAINST 0. ANT0NIU8 AND L. OATILINA. 197
gacy ; he dyed his hands in impious murder, he plundered
the allies, he violated the laws, the courts of justice.
******
Why should I say how you polluted the province 1
******
For how you behaved there I do not dare to say, since you
have been acquitted. I imagine that Roman knights must
have been liars ; that tho documentary evidence of a most
honourable city was false ; that Quintus Metellus Pius told
lies ; that Africa told lies. I suppose that those judges who
decided that you were innocent saw something or other. 0
wretched man, not to see that you were not acquitted by
that decision, but only reserved for some more severe tri-
bunal, and some more fearful punishment !
[Is it possible that Cicero should say this if he had been
Catiline's advocate when he was acquitted 1]
* * * * * , *
But he showed how greatly he reverenced the people, when
he beheaded an exceedingly popular man in the sight of the
people.
[This refers to Catiline having carried the head of Marius
in triumph through the city.]
By what insanity he has been induced to despise me, I
have no idea. Did he think that I should endure it with
equanimity ? or did he not see by the case of his own most
intimate friend, that I could not endure even injuries done to
others with any patience ?
[He evidently refers here to Caius Verres.]
******
The other having sold all the cattle, and having assigned
over nearly all the pasture land, still retains the shepherds,
with whom he says that he can, whenever he pleases, imme-
diately stir up a war of runaway slaves.
[He means Caius Antonius.]
******
The other induced one over whom he had influence, imme-
diately to promise the Roman people gladiators, whom he was
not bound to provide ; whom he himself, when a candidate for
the consulship, had surveyed, and picked out, and purchased;
and it was done in the presence of the Roman people.
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198 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
[He appears to mean Quintus Gallius, whom he after-
wards defended when prosecuted for bribery. For when
he was a candidate for the prsetorship, because he had not
given any shows of wild beasts in his sedileship, he gave a
^ow of gladiators on the pretence of exhibiting them in
honour of his &ther.]
*
Wherefore, if you wish to increase your wages, * *
* I am content with that law by which we have
seen two consuls elect convicted at one time.
[He refers to the Calpumian law, which Caius Calpur-
nius Piso had passed three years before, about bribery.
The consuls he alludes to were Publius Sylla and Pubhus
Antonius.]
And to say nothing of that man, a robber when in Sylla's
army, a gladiator on his entrance into the city, a coachman
on his victory,
[It is evident he is speaking of Antonius. He says,
"that he was a robber in Sylla's" army, on account of
the squadrons of cavalry with which he ravaged Achaia.
The words "a gladiator on his entrance into the city," refer
to the proscription that ensued ; " a coachman on his vic-
tory," to the fact that Sylla, after his victory, exhibited
games in the circus, in which men of honourable birth
exhibited themselves as charioteers, and among them,
Caius Antonius.]
But is it not a prodigy and a miracle, that you, 0 Catilina,
should hope for, or even think of, the consulship 1 For from
whom do you ask it 1 From the chiefs of the state, who,
when Lucius Volcatius held a coimcil, did not choose you to
be even allowed to stand for it 1
[It has been said already, that when Catilina was go-
vernor in Africa, the Africans sent ambassadors to com-
plain to the senate of his conduct there, and many of tlie
senators reflected on him very severely. In consequence,
when he announced that he was standing for the consul-
ship, Lucius Volcatius Tullus, the consul, convened a
council to decide whether any notice ought to be taken at
all of Catiline if he did offer him8el£ For he was at the
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AGAINST C. ANTONIUS AND L. OATIUNA. 199
moment imder prosecution for extortion. On this, Catiline
for the time withdrew from that competition.]
Do you ask it from the senators ? who by their own au-
thority had almost stripped you of all your honours, and sur-
rendered you in chains to the Africans.
[For when CatiUne was tried for extortion, the majority
' of the votes in the ballot-box in which the senators voted
was for his conviction ; but he was acquitted by the votes
of the knights and tribimes.]
Do you ask it from the order of knights, which you have
slaughtered 1
[The equestrian order had taken the part of Cinna
against Sylla, and had, on that account, been put to death
in great niunbers after the final victory of Sylla.]
or from the people ? to whom your cruelty afforded such a
spectacle that no one could behold it without grief, or can
now recollect it without groaning.
[He is again referring to his having carried the head of
Marius Gratidianus through the streets.]
which head, while still full of life and breath, he himself
carried to Sylla in his own hands from the Janiculan Hill to
the temple of Apollo.
******
[Notice must be taken that this was not the temple of
Apollo on the Palatine Hill, for that was erected by
Augustus, after his victory at Actium. This temple was
that one outside the Carmental Gate, between the vegetable
market and the Flaminian Circus.]
What can you say in your defence ? * ♦ ♦ Which
you will not be allowed to say.
******
[A little after he adds,]
Lastly, they could deny it, and they have denied it. You
have not left your impudence room to deny it They, there-
fore, will be said to have been fine judges, if, after having
condemned Luscius while he denied it, they acquitted Catiline
though he confessed it
[This Lucius Luscius, a noted centurion of Sylla's party,
and one who had acquired great richer by his victory, had
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200 OIOBRO'S ORATIONS,
been condemned a little while before Cicero made this
speech. Lucius Bellienus, too, had been condemned, whom
Cicero calls the imcle of Catiline. They had both com-
mitted murders during the proscription.]
He then says that he was not ignorant ; since even they
said that they had acted ignorantly, and that if they had slain
any one, they had only obeyed the general and dictator, and
that they could deny it, but that Catiline could not deny it.
[In fact, Catiline was prosecuted a few months after for
the very crimes with which Cicero is reproaching him.
For after the elections were over, and Catiline had been
rejected, Lucius Lucullus prosecuted him as an assassin.]
Have you this dignity which you rely on, and, therefore,
despise and scorn me 1 or that other dignity, which you have
acquired by all the rest of your life ? when you have lived in
such a manner that there was no place so holy, that your
presence did not bring suspicion of criminality into it, even
when there was no guilt.
[For Fabia, a vestal virgin, had been prosecuted for
adultery with Catiline, and had been acquitted. And she
was the sister of Terentia, Cicero's wife, on which account
Cicero had exerted his influence in her behalf.]
When you were detected in acts of adultery; when you
yourself detected adulterers; when you out of the same
adultery found yoxurself both a wife and a daughter.
[It is said that Catiline had committed adultery with a
woman who was afterwards his mother-in-law ; and that,
after that adultery with her, he married her daughter.
Lucceius also reproached him with this in the orations which
he wrote against him.]
Why need I say how you plimdered the province ? though
all the Eoman people raised an outcry against you, and
resisted you. For how you behaved there I do not venture
to say, as you have been ieusquitted.
I pass over this nefarious attempt of yours, that day so
bitter and grievous to the Roman people, when, with Cneeus
Piso for your accomplice, and no one else, you intended to
moke a general slaughter of the nobles.
[There i^aa a general belief that Catiline and Cnseus
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AGAINST a ANTONIUS AND L. OATILtNA. 201
Piso, a profligate young man, had formed a conspiracy to
murder the senate the year before, in the consulship of
Cotta and Torquatus ; and that slaughter had only been
prevented from taking place because Catiline did not give
the signal agreed upon.' Piso was afterwards assassinated
in Spain, some say by the dependants, and with the con-
nivance of, Pompey.l
Did you forget that, when we were both standing for
the prsBtorship, you begged me to concede the first rank to
you? and do you recollect that, as you were frequently
begging this of me with great earnestness, I answered you
that it was an impudent thing of you to make such a request
when Boculus had not been able to obtain the same fiivour
fi^om you 1
[Boculus was a noted character in the circus.]
[He is speaking now of some profligate citizens.]
Who, after they found themselves unable to cut the sinews
of the Roman citizens with that Spanish poniard of theirs,
attempted to draw two daggers against the republic at once.
[By the Spanish poniard he means Cnseus Piso. The two
daggers evidently mean Catiline and Antonius.]
You know that this man had already instigated Licinius
the gladiator, a partisan of Catiline'a^ and Quintus Curius,
a man of qusestorian rank
[This Curius was a noted gambler.]
[Both Catiline and Antonius made insulting replies to
this speech of Cicero ; inveighing chiefly against its novelty.
However, Cicero was elected consul unanimously ; and
Antonius beat Catiline by the votes of a few centuries.]
> Middleton quotes Suetonius for the statement that Julius Csdsar
and Orassus were also privy to this conspiracy, of whom the latter was to
be dictator, and the former his master of the horse ; but that Crassus's
heart failed him when it came to the time ; and that, in consequence,
Onsar, who was to have glyen the 8is;Qal, did not do it.
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OIOBBOS ORATION&
THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO
IH OPPOSITIOir TO
PUBLIUS SERVILIUS RULLUS, A TRIBUNE OP THE PEOPLE,
CONCERNING THE AGRARIAN LAW.
DBLIYBRED IH THE SENATE.
THE FIRST ORATION ON THIS SUBJECT.
THE ABOUXENT.
A fihort time before Cicero's inauguration as consul, which took place on
the first of January, Publius Servilius Rullus, one of the new tribunes,
(who entered on their office on the tenth of December,) had been
alarming the senate with the proposal of a new agrarian law, the
purport of which was to appoint ten commissioners, (decemyiri,) with
absolute power for five years over all the revenues of tlie republic ;
to distribute them at pleasure to the citizens ; to sell and buy what
lands they thought fit ; to determine the rights of the present pos-
sessors ; to require an account from all tlie generals abroad, except
Pompey, of the spoils taken in their wars ; to settle colonies wherever
they judged it proper, and especially at Capua; and, in short, to have
the entire command of the money and forces of the empire. (Middle-
ton, ch. iii.)
This oration (of which some of the beginning is lost), was addressed to the
senate on the first of January, to relieve them of their apprehensions
respecting this law, by assuring them that he would oppose the law
and all its promoters to the uttermost of his power ; and that he
would not suffer the state to be injured or its liberties to be impaired,
while the administration remained in his hands.
The decemviri will sell the booty, the spoils, the division of
the plunder, the very camp of Cnseus Pompeius, while the
general is forced to sit still.
In beardless youth ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
[The whole of the Propontis and of the Hellespont will
therefore come under the power of the praetor ; the whole
coast of the Lycians and Cilicians will be advertised for
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L AGAINST P. S. RULLU8. 203
sale ; Mysia and Phrygia will be subjected to the same
conditions.^]
I. 1 That which was then openly sought, is now en-
deavoured to be effected secretly by mines. For the decemvirs
will say, what indeed is said by many, and has often been
said, — that after the consulship of those men, all that kingdom
became the property of the Roman people, by the bequest of
the king Alexander. Will you then give Alexandria' to those
men when they ask for it in an imderhand way, whom you
resisted when they openly fought against you 1 Which, in the
name of the immortal gods, do these things seem to you, — the
designs of sober men, or the dreams of drunken ones ? the
serious thoughts of wise men, or the frantic wishes of mad-
men ? See, now, in the second chapter of this law, how that
profligate debauchee is disturbing the republic, — how he is
ruining and dissipating the possessions left us by our ances-
tors ; so as to be not less a spendthrift in the patrimony of
the Roman people than in his own. He is advertising for sale
by his law all the revenues, for the decemvirs to sell them ;
that is to say, he is advertising an auction of the property of
the state. He wants lands to be bought, in order to be dis-
tributed ; he is seeking money. No doubt he will devise
something, and bring it forward ; for in the preceding chap-
ters the dignity of the Roman people was attacked; the name
of our dominion was held up as an object of common hatred
to all the nations of the earth ; cities which were at peace
with us, lands belonging to the allies, the ranks of kings in
alliance with us, were all made a present of to the decemvirs ;
and now they want actual ready money paid down to them.
I am waiting to see what this vigilant and clever tribune is
contriving. Let the Scantian' wood, says he, be sold. Did
you then find this wood mentioned among the possessions that
were left, or in the pasture lands of the lessors ? If there is
^ Rhunck had enclosed this sentence in brackets, as the gloss and in-
terpolation of an ignorant man ; but Orellius thinks some part of it
really Cicero's, though not free Irom corruptions.
* Alexander, king of Egypt, had died at Tyre in the consulship of
Cotta and Torquatus, two years before, and had bequeathed Alexandria
and Egypt to the Roman people, and in consequence many people
advocated the course of claiming that inheritance, and depriving Ptolemy
the king of Egypt The subject will be mentioned again in the next
oration.
* The Scantian wood was in Campania.
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204 CKJERO'S ORATIONS.
anything which you hav^ hunted out, and discovered, and
brought to light out of darkness, although it is not just, still
-aae that, since it is convenient, and since you yourself were
the person to bring it forward. But shall you sell the Scantian
wood while we are consuls, and while this senate is in exist-
ence) Shall you touch any of the revenues? Shall you
take away from the Roman people that which is their strength
in time of war, their ornament in time of peace ? But then,
indeed, I shall think myself a lazier consid than those feai'less
men who filled this ofl&ce in the times of our ancestors ; be-
cause the revenues which were acquired by the Roman people
when they were consuls, will be considered not able to be pre-
served when I am consul.
II. He is selling all the possessions in Italy, in regular
order. Forsooth, he is very busy in that occupation. For he
does not omit one. He goes through the whole of Sicily in
the account-books of the censors. He does not omit one
single house, or one single field. You have heard an auction
of the property of the Roman people given notice of by a
tribune of the people, and fixed for the month of January ;
and I suppose you do not doubt, that they who procured
these things by their arms and their valour, did not sell them
for the sake of the treasury, on purpose that we might have
something to sell for the sake of bribery.
See, now, how much more undisguisedly than before he
proceeds on his course. For it has been already shown by me
how they attacked Pompeius in the earlier part of the law;
and now they shall show it also themselves. He orders the
lands belonging to the men of Attalia and Olympus to be
sold. These lands the victory of Publius Servilius, that most
gallant general, had made the property of the Roman peopla
After that, the royal domains in Macedonia, which were ac-
quired partly by the valour of Titus Flamininus, and partly
by that of Lucius Paullus, who conquered Perses. After that,
that most excellent and productive land which belongs to
Corinth, which was added to the revenues of the Roman
people by the campaigns and successes of Lucius Mummius.
After that, they sell the lands in Spain near Carthagena,
acquired by the distinguished valour of the two Scipios.
Then Carthagena itself, which Publius Scipio, having stripped
it of all its fortifications, consecrated to the eternal recollection
of men, whether his purpose was to keep up the memory of
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I. AGAINST P. S. BULLUa 205
the disaster of the Carthaginians, or to hear witness to our
victory, or to fulfil some religious ohligation. Having sold
all these ensigns and crowns, as it were, of the empire, with
which the republic was adorned, and handed down to you by
your ancestors, they then order the lands to be sold which
the king Mithridates possessed in Paphlagonia^ and Pontus,
and Cappadocia. Do they not seem to be pursuing without
much disguise, and almost with the crier's spear, the army of
Cnaeus Pompeius, when they order those lands to be sold in
which he is now engaged and carrying on war 1
III. But what is the meaning of this, that they fix no place
for this auction which they are establishing ) For power is
given to the decemvirs by this law, of holding their sales in
any places which seem convenient to them. The censors are
not allowed to let the contracts for farming the revenues^
except in the sight of the Roman people. Shall these men
be allowed to sell them in the most distant countries? But
even the most profligate men, when they have squandered their
patrimony, prefer selling their property in the auctioneer's
rooms, rather than in the roads, or in the streets. This man,
by his law, gives leave to the decemvirs to sell the property
of the Eoman people in whatever darkness and whatever
sohtude they find it convenient Do you not, moreover, see
how grievous, how formidable, and how pregnant with extor-
tion that invasion of the decemvirs and of the multitude that
will follow in their train will be to all the provinces, and king-
doms, and free nations ) In the case of those men on whom
you have conferred lieutenancies for the sake of entering on
inheritances, though they went as private men, on private
business, invested with no excessive power and no supreme
authority, you have still heard how burdensome their arrival
has proved to your allies. What alarm and what misfortime,
then, must you think all nations are threatened with by this
law, when decemvirs are sent all over the world with supreme
power, — men of the greatest avarice, and with an insatiable
desire for every sort of property? whose arrival will be
grievous, whose forces will be formidable, whose judicial and
arbitrary power will be absolutely intolerable. For they will
have the power of deciding whatever they please to be public
property, and of selling whatever they decide to be such.
Even that very thing which conscientious men will not do, —
namely, taking money to abstain from selling, is to be made
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206 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
lawful for them to do by the express provisions of the law.
From this proTision what plimderings, what bargainings, what
a regular auction of all law and of every one's fortimes must
inevitably arise 1 Even that which in ihe former part of the
law made in the consulship of Sylla and Pompeius was
strictly defined, that they have now left at the discretion of
these men, without any restriction or limitation.
IV. He orders these same decemvirs to impose an exceed-
ingly heavy tax on all the public domains, in order that
they might be able both to release what lands they choose,
and to confiscate what they choose. And in this proceeding
it is hard to see whether itieir severity will be more cruel or
their kindness more gainful. •
However, there are in the whole law two exceptions, not so
much unjust as suspicious. In imposing the tax it makes an
exception with respect to the Eecentoric district in Sicily ;
and in selling the land, he excepts those with respect to which
there was an express provision in the treaty. These lands are
in Africa, in the occupation of Hiempsal. Here I ask, if
sufficient protection is afforded to Hiempsal by the treaty,
and if the Recentoric district is private property, what was the
use of excepting these lands by name in the law 1 If that
treaty itself has some obscurity in it, and if the Recentoric is
sometimes said to be public property, who do you suppose
will believe that there have been two interests found in the
world, and only two, which he spared for nothing? Does
there appear to have been any coin in the world so care-
fully hidden that the architects of this law have fidled to
scent it out? They are draining the provinces, the fi:ee
cities, our allies, our friends, and even the kings who are
confederate with us. They are laying hands on ti^e revenues
of the Roman people.
That is not enough. Listen — Glisten, you who, by the most
honoiuuble vote of the people and senate, have commanded
armies and carried on wars : — " Whatever has come or shall
oome to any one, of booty, of spoils, of money given for gold
crowns, which has neither been spent on a monument, nor
paid into the treasury, is all to be paid over to the decem-
virs." From this chapter they expect a great deal. They
propose by their resolution an investigation into the affidis of
all otir generals and all their heirs. But they expect to get
the greatest quantity of money from Faustus. That oauae
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I. AGAINST P. S. RULLUB. 207
which the judges on their oath would not undertake, these
decemvirs have undertaken. They think, perhaps, that it
was declined by the judges, on purpose to be reserved for
them. After that, the law most carefully provides for the
future, that, whatever money any general receives, he is at
once to pay over to the decemvirs. But here he excepts
Pompeius, very much as, as it seems to me, in that law by
which aliens are sent away from Kome an exception is made
in favour of Glaucippus. For the effect of this exception is
not to confer a kin(hiess on one man, but merely to save one
man from injustice. But the man whose spoils the law thus
spares, has his revenues invaded by the same law. For it
orders all the money which is received after our consulship
from the new revenues, to be placed to the use of the decem-
virs. As if we did not see that ihej were thinking of selling
the revenues which Cnadus Pompeius has added to the wealth
of the Boman people.
V. You see n«w, 0 conscript &thers, that the money which
is to belong to the decemvirs is coUected and heaped to-
gether from every possible soxirce, and by every imaginable
expedient. The unpopularity arising from their possession of
this large sum is to be diminished ; for it shall be spent in
the purchase of lands. Exceedingly well. Who then is to
buy those lands ? These same decemvirs. You, 0 Bullus, —
for I say nothing of the rest of them,— are to buy whatever
you like ; to sell whatever you like ; to buy or sell at whatever
price you please. For that admirable man takes care not to
buy of any one against his will. As if we did not understand
that to buy of a man against his will is an injurious thing to
do; but to buy of one who has no objection, is profitable.
How much land (to say nothing of other people) will your
£Either-in-law sell you ? and, if I have formed a proper esti-
mate of the feimesB of his disposition, will have no objection
to sell you ? The rest will do the same willingly ; they will
be glad to exchange the unpopularity attaching to the posses-
sion of land for money ; to receive whatever they demand, and
to part with what they can scarcely retain. Now just see the
boimdless and intolerable licentiousness of all these measures.
Money has been collected for the purchase of lands. More-
over^ the lands are not to be bought of people against their
will. Suppose all the owners agree not to sell, what is to
happen then ? Is the money to be refunded ) That cannot
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208 OIGEBO S ORATIONS.
be. Is it to be collected 1 The law forbids that. However,
let that pass. There is nothing which cannot be bought, if
you will only give as much as the seller asks. Let us plunder
the whole world, let us sell our revenues, let us exhaust the
treasury, in order that, whether men be owners of wealth, or
of odium, or even of a pestilence, still their lands may be
bought
What is to happen then? what sort of men are to be
established as setUers in those lands) what is to be the
system and plan adopted in the whole business 1 Colonies,
says the law, shall be led thither, and settled there. How
many? Of what class of men 1 Where are they to be
established 1 For who is there who does not see that all
these things have got to be considered when we are talking of
colonies ? Did you think, 0 Eullus, that we would give up
the whole of Italy to you and to those contrivers of every-
thing whom you have set up, in an unarmed and defence-
less state, for you to strengthen it with garrisons afterwards 1
for you to occupy it with colonias ? to hold it bound and
fettered by every sort of chain 1 For where is there any
clause to prevent your establishing a colony on the Janiculan
Hill ) or from oppressing and overwhelnung this city with
some other city 1 We will not do so, says he. In the first
place, I don't know that ; in the next place, I am afraid
of you ; lastly, I will never permit our safety to depend on
vour kindness rather than on our own prudence.
VI. But as you wanted to fill all Italy with your colonies,
did you think that not one of us would understand what sort
of a measure that was 1 For it is written, " The decemvirs
may lead whatever settlers they choose into whatever munici-
palities and colonies they like ; and they may assign them
lands in whatever places they please ;" so that, when they
have occupied all Italy with their soldiers, you may have no
hope left you, I will not say of retaining your dignity, but
none even of recovering your liberty. And these things,
indeed, I object to on suspicion and from conjecture. But
now all mistake on any side shall be removed; now they
shall show openly that the very name of this republic, and
the situation of this city and empire, that even this very
temple of the good and great Jupiter, and this citadel of all
nations, is odious to them. They wish settlers to be con-
ducted to Capua. They wish again to oppose that dtj to this
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I. AGAINST P. S. BULLUS. 209
city. They think of removing all their riches thither, of
transferring thither the name of the empire. That place
which, because of the fertility of its lands and its abundance
of every sort of production, is said to be the parent of pride
and cruelty — ^in that our colonists, men selected as fit for
every imaginable purpose, will be settled by the decemvirs.
No doubt, in that city, in which men, though bom to the
enjoyment of ancient dignities and hereditary fortunes, were
still unable to bear with moderation the luxuriance of
their fortunes, your satellites will be able to restrain their
insolence and to behave with modesty. Our ancestors re-
moved from Capua the magistrates, the senate, the general
council, and all the ensigns of the republic, and left nothing
there except the bare name of Capua ; not out of cruelty, (for
what was ever more merciful than they were 1 for they often
restored their property even to foreign enemies when they
had been subdued ;) but out of wisdom ; because they saw
that if any trace of the republic remained within those walls,
the city itself might be able to aflford a home to supreme
power. And would not you too see how mischievous these
things were, if you were not desirous of overturning the
republic, and of procuring a new sort of power for your
own selves 1
YII. For what is there that is especially to be guarded
against in the establishment of colonies 1 If it be luxury —
Capua corrupted Hannibal himsel£ If it be pride— that
appears from the general arrogance of the Campanians to be
innate there. If we want a bulwark for the state — ^then I say, ,
that Capua is not placed in front of this ciiy as an outwork,
but is opposed to it as an enemy. But how is it armed )
0 ye immortal gods ! For in the Punic war all the power
that Capua had, it had from its unassisted recources ; but
now, all the cities which are around Capua will be occupied
by colonists, by the order of these same decemvirs. For, for
this reason, the law itself allows, '^ that the decemvirs may
lead whoever they please, as settlers to eveiy town which they
choose.*' And it orders the Campanian district, and that of
Stella, to be divided among these colonists.
I do not complain of the diminution of the revenues ; nor
of the wickedness of this loss and injury. I pass over those
things which there is no one who cannot complain of with the
greatest weight and the greatest truth ; that we have not been
VOL. II. F
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210 CIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
able to preserve the most important part of the public
patrimony of the state, that which has been to ns the source
of our supply of com, our granary in time of war, our revenue
placed under custody of the seaJs and bolts of the republic ;
that we, in short, have abandoned that district to Publius
Bullus, which itself by its own resources had resisted both the
absolute power of Sylla, and the corrupting liberality of the
Gracchi. I do not say that, now that so much has been lost,
this is the only revenue which remains in the republic ; the
only one which, while other sources of income are interrupted,
does not fail us ; the only one which is splendid in peace, is
not worn out in war ; which supports our soldiery, and is not
afraid of our enemies. I pass over all this which I might
say ; I reserve that for the assembly of the people. I am
speaking now of the danger to our safety and to our liberty.
For what do you think will remain to you imimpaired in the
whole republic, or in your liberty, or in your dignity, when
Rullus, and those whom you are much more afhdd of than
you are of Rullus, with his whole band of needy and unprin-
cipled men, with all his forces, with all his silver and gold,
shall have occupied Capua and the cities around Capua ^
These things, 0 conscript fathers, I will resist eagerly and
vigorously ; and I will not permit men, while I am consul, to
bring forth those plans against the republic which they have
long been meditating.
You made a great mistake, 0 Rullus, you and some of
your colleagues, when you hoped that, in being in opposition
to a consul who studied the interests of the people in reality,
not by making a vain parade of so doing, you woidd be able
to gain popularity while overturning the republic. I chal-
lenge you ; I invite you to the assembly ; I will accept the
Roman people as an umpire between us.
VIII. In feet, if we look round to survey everything which
is pleasant and acceptable to the people, we shall find that
nothing is so popular as peace, and concord, and ease. Tou
have given up to me a city made anxious with suspicion, in
suspense from fear, harassed to death by yoiu* proposed laws,
and assemblies, and seditions. You have inflamed the hopes
of the wicked ; you have filled the virtuous with alarms ;
you have banished good faith from the forum, and dignity
from the republic. Amid all this commoiion and agitation
of minds and circumstances, when the voice and authority of
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I. AGAINST P. S. RULLUS. 211
the consul has suddenly, from amid such great darkness,
dawned on the Roman people; when it has shown that
nothing need be feared ; that no regular army, no band of
extempore ruffians, no colony, no sale of the revenues, no new
sort of command, no reign of decemvirs, no new Eome or
opposition seat of empire, will be allowed to exist while we are
consuls ; that the greatest tranquillity of peace and ease will
be secured ; then, no doubt, we shall have much reason to
fear that this beautiful agrarian law of yours will appear
popular. But when I have displayed the wickedness of your
counsels, the dishonesty of your law, and the treachery which
is planned by those popular tribunes of the people against the
Roman people ; then, I suppose, I shall have reason to fear
that I shall not be allowed to appear in the assembly, for the
purpose of opposing you ; especially when I have determined
and resolved so to conduct myself in my consulship, (and the
duties of the consulship cannot be discharged with dignity and
freedom, in any other manner,) as neither to desire any pro-
vince, nor honour, nor dignity, nor advantage, nor anything
whatever which can have any hindrance thrown in its way by
any tribune of the people. The consul states, in full senate, on
the calends of January, that if the present condition of the
republic continues, and if no new event arises, on account of
which he caimot with honour avoid it, he will not go to any
province. By that means I shall be able, 0 conscript fathers,
so to behave myself in this magistracy, as to be able to
restrain any tribune of the people who is hostile to the republic,
— ^to despise any one who is hostile to myself.
IX. Wherefore, in the name of the immortal gods! I
entreat you, recollect yourselves, 0 tribimes of the people ;
desert those men by whom, in a short time, unless you take
great care, you will yourselves be deserted. Conspire with
us; agree with all viiluous men; defend our common re-
public with one common zeal and aflfection. There are many
secret wounds sustained by the repubhc. There are many
mischievous counsels of abandoned citizens designed against
her. There is no external danger. There is no king, no
nation, no people in the world whom we need fear. The evil
is confined within our own walls, internal and domestic.
Every one of us to the l)est of his power ought to resist and
to remedy this. .;You mistake if you think that the senate
approves of what is said by me, but that the inclinations of
p2
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212 Cicero's orations.
the people are diflferent. All men, who wish to be safe them-
selves, will follow the authority of the consul, a man im-
influenced by evil passions, free from all suspicion of guilt ;
cautious in dangers, not fearful in contests. But if any one
of you cherishes a hope that he may be able in a turbulent
state of afi^irs to promote his own interests, first of all, let
him give up hoping any such thing as long as I am consul.
In the next place, let him take me myself as a proof — {me
whom he sees now consul, though bom only in the equestrian
rank) — of what course of life most easily conducts virtuous
men to honour and dignity. But if you, 0 conscript fiithers,
assist me with your zeal and energy in defending our common
dignity, then, in truth, I shall accomplish that of which our
republic is at present in the greatest possible need. I shall
make the authority of this order, which existed so long
among our ancestors, appear after a long interval to be again
restored to the republic.
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II. AGAINST P. S. BUIXUS. 213
THE SECOND SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO
IN OPPOSITION TO
PUBLIUS SERVILIUSRULLUS, A TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE,
CONCERNING THE AGRARIAN LAW.
DELIYBRBD TO THB PEOPLB.
THE ARGUMENT.
A few days after the preceding speech in the senate, Cicero came into
the assembly of the people, and made the following speech to them ;
dilating on the different particulars of the proposed law, and on its
eyils, at much greater length than he had done when he addressed the
senate. And he succeeded so much, that, as he says himself, no
one had ever had more success in arguing in favour of an agrarian
law, (which was always likely to be a popular proposal,) than he had
had in haranguing the people against this one.
I. It is in accordance with the customs and established usages
of our ancestors, 0 Romans, that those who, by your kindness,
have overtaken the images of their feimily,* should, the first
time that they hold an assembly of the people, take an
opportunity of uniting thanks to you for your kindness
with a panegyric on their ancestors ; and in the speech then
made, some men are, on some occasions, found worthy of the
rank of their ancestors. But most men only accomplish this, —
namely, to make it seem that so vast a debt is due to their
ancestors, that there is something still left to be paid to
their posterity. I, indeed, have no opportunity of speaking
before you of my ancestoi's, not because they were not such
men as you see me also to be^ who am bom of their blood, »
' " Those ^mans who had passed through one of the high offices of
sediles, praetor, or consul, were allowed to have their likenesses handed
down to posterity. These likenesses were, according to Casaubon, busts ;
but according to Schweighauser, masks ; they were kept in the hall of the
bouse, in niches appropriated for their reception, and were brought forth
on occasions of funerals, together with their robes of office, to personate
the dead. Whoever had such images in his possession was nobUia,*' —
Riddle, Lat Diet. v. hnago.
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214 OICBRO'S ORATIONS.
and educated in their principles, but because they had never
any share of popular praise, or of the light of honours con-
ferred by you. And of myself I fear lest it may look like
arrogance to speak, and yet like ingratitude to be silent.
For it is a very troublesome thing for me myself to enume-
rate to you the pursuits by which I have earned this dignity ;
and, on the other hand, I cannot possibly be silent about
your great kindnesses to me. Wherefore I will employ a
reasonable moderation in speaking, so as to mention the kind-
ness which I have received from you. I will speak slightly
of the reasons why I am thought to have deserved the
greatest honour you can confer, and your singularly favour-
able judgment of me. * * * * ♦
After a very long interval, almost beyond the memory of
our times, you have for the first time made me, a new man,
consul; and you have opened that rank which the nobles
have held strengthened by guards, and fenced round in every
possible manner, in my instance first, and have resolved that
it should in future be open to virtue. Nor have you only
made me consul, though that is of itself a most honoiu^ble
thing, but you have made me so in such a way as very few
nobles in tiis city have ever been made consuls before in,
and no new man whatever before me.
II. For, in truth, if you please to recollect, you will find
that those new men who have at any time been made consuls
without a repulse, have been elected after long toil, and
on some critical emergency, having stood for it many years
after they had been praetors, and a good deal later than they
might have done according to the laws regulating the age
of candidates for the ofiice ; but that those who stood for it
in their regular year were not elected without a repulse ; that
I am the only one of all the new men whom we can
remember who have stood for the consulship the first
moment that by law I coidd, — who have been elected consul
the first time tiiat I have stood ; so that this honour which
you have conferred on me, having been sought by me at the
proper time, appears not to have been filched by me on the
occasion of some unpopular candidate oflfering himself,— not
to have been gained by long perseverance in asking for it, but
to have been fairly earned by my worth and dignity. Thia^
also, is a most honourable thing for me, 0 Romans, which
I mentioned a few minutes ago, — that I am the first new
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n. AGAINST P. S. RULLUS. 215
man for many years on whom you have conferred this
honour, — that you have conferred it on my first application,
in my proper year. But yet nothing can be more splendid
or more honourable for me than this circumstance, — that
at the comitia at which I was elected you delivered not your
ballot,* the vindication of your silent liberty, but your eager
voices as the witnesses of your good- will towards, and zeal for
me. And so it was not the last tribe of the votes, but the
very first moment of your meeting,— it was not the single
voices of the criers, but the whole Roman people with one
voice that declared me consul.
I think this eminent and unprecedented kindness of yours,
0 Romans, of great weight as a reward for my com-age, and
as a source of joy to me, but still more calculated to impress
me with care and anxiety. For, 0 Romans, many and grave
thoughts occupy my mind, which allow me but little rest day
or night. First, there is anxiety about discharging the duties
of the consulship, which is a difficult and important business
to all men, and especially to me above all otier men ; for if
1 err, I shall obtain no pardon — if I do well, I shall get but
little praise, and that, too, extorted from unwilling people —
if I am in doubt, I have no faithful counsellors to whom I
can apply — ^if I am in difficulty, I have no sinre assistance
from the nobles on which I can depend.
III. But, if I alone were in danger, I would bear it, 0
Romans, with more equanimity; but there appears to me to
be some men determined, if they think that I have done any-
thing wrongly, not only intentionally, but even by chance, to
blame all of you for having preferred me to the nobles. But
I think, 0 Romans, that I ought to endure everything rather
than not discharge the duties of my consulship in such a
manner, as by all my actions and counsels to compel men to
praise your action and counsel with respect to me. There is
* Middleton says, (with express reference to this passage,) " the method
of choosing consuls was not by an open vote, but by a kind of ballot or
little tickets of wood, distributed to the citizens with the names
of the candidates seyerally inscribed on each ; but in Cicero's case, the
people were not content with this secret and nilent way of testifying
their inclinations ; but, before they came to any scrutiny, loudly and
nniyersally proclaimed Cicero the first consul ; so that, as he himself
declared in his speech to them after his election, he was not chosen by
the votes of particular citizens, but by the common suffrage of the city;
nor d«>olared by the Yoioe of the crier^ but of the whole Koman people."
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216 CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
also this added to the great labour and difficulty which I see
before me in discharging the duties of my office, that I have
made up my mind that I ought not to adopt the same rule
and principle of conduct which former consuls have ; some of
whom have carefully avoided all approach to this place, and
the sight of you, and others have at all events not been very
fond of it. But I not only declare in this place where it is
exceedingly easy to do it, but I said in my veiy first speech
on the first of January, in the senate itself, which did not
seem likely to be so fevourable a place for the expression, that
I would be a consul in the interests of the people. Nor is
it possible for me^ knowing, as I do, that I have been made
consul, not by the zeal of the powerful citizens, nor by the
preponderating influence of a few men, but by the deliberate
judgment of the Roman people, and that, too, in such a way
as to be preferred to men of the very highest rank, to avoid,
both in this magistracy and throughout my whole life, de-
voting myself to the interests of the people.
When, however, I speak of the interests of the people, I ,
have great need of your wisdom in giving the proper meaning
and interpretation to this expression. For there is a great
error abroad, by reason of the treacherous pretences made by
some people, who, though they oppose and hinder not only
the advantage but even the safety of the people, still endea-
vour by their speeches to make men believe them zealous for
the interests of the people. I, 0 Romans, know in what con-
dition I received the republic on the first of January : full of
anxiety, full of fear. There was no evil, no misfortune which
the good were not dreading and the bad looking out for.
Every sort of seditious design against the existing constitu-
tion of the republic, and against your tranquillity, was said
to be in contemplation, — some such to have been actually set
on foot the moment we were elected consuls All confidence
was banished fix)m the forum, not by the stroke of any new
calamity, but by the general suspicion entertained of the
coiuia of justice, and by the disorder into which they had
fallen, and by the constant reversal of previous niecisions.
New authority, extraordinary powers, suited not to com-
manders, but to kings, were supposed to be aimed at.
IV. And as I did not only suspect these things, but clearly
saw them, (for indeed there was no secret made of what was
being done,) I said in the senate that I would in this magis-
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II. AGAINST F. a BULLUa 217
traoy prove a consul devoted to the interests of the people.
For what is there so advantageous to the people as peace 1 in
which not only the animals to whom nature has given sense,
but even the houses and fields appear to me to rejoice.
What is so advantageous to the people as liberty 1 which is
sought out and preferred to everything, not oidy by men,
but even by the beasts. What is so advantageous to the
];>eople as tranquillity) which is so delightful a thing, that
both you and your ancestors, and every brave man, thinks
it worth his while to encoimter the greatest labours, in order
at length to enjoy tranquillity, particularly if he be a man
in command, or a man of high rank. And we, therefore, are
bound to give great praise and to show great gratitude to
our ancestors, because it is owing to their labours that we are
able to enjoy tranquillity without risk. How then can I
avoid being devoted to the interests of the people, 0 Komans,
when I see all these things, — our peace abroad, and the
liberty which belongs to the Koman race and Koman name,
and our domestic tranquillity, and everything, in short, which
is considered by you as valuable or honourable, entrusted to
the good faith, and, as it were, to the protection of my con-
sulship ? And, 0 Romans, a promised liberality which, how-
ever you may be encouraged by words to expect it, cannot be
performed by any possible means without exhausting the trea-
sury, ought not to appear to you an agreeable measure, or
one calculated to promote your real interests. Nor are the
disturbances of the courts of jtistice, and the reversals of
judicial decisions, and the restoration of convicted persons to
be considered as measures advantageous to the people; for
they are rather the preludes to the total ruin of cities whose
afiairs are already in a falling and almost desperate state.
Nor, if any men promise lands to the Roman people, or if
they hold out to you, under false pretences, hopes of such
things, while in secret they are keeping entirely different
objects in view, are they to be thought devoted to the true
interests of the people.
V. For I will speak the truth, 0 Romans ; I cannot find
&ult with the general principle of an agrarian law, for it
occurs to my mind that two most illustrious men, two most
able men, two men most thoroughly attached to the Roman
people, 'Hberius and Cains Gracchus, established the people
on public domains which had previously been occupied by
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218 OICERO*S ORATIONS.
private individuals. Nor am I a consul of such opinions as
to think it wrong, as most men do, to praise the Gracchi ; by
whose counsels, and wisdom, and laws, I see that many parts
of the republic have been greatly strengthened. Therefore,
when at the very beginning, I, being the consul elect, was
informed that the tribunes elect of the people were drawing
up an agrarian law, I wished to ascertain what their plans
were. In truth, I thought that, since we were both to act as
magistrates in the same year, it was right that there should
be some union between us, for the purpose of governing the
repubho wisely and successfully. When I wished to join
them familiarly in conversation, I was shut out ; their pro-
jects were concealed from me : and when I assured them
that, if the law appeared to me to be advantageous to the
Roman people, I would assist them in it and promote it, still
they rejected this liberality of mine with scorn, and said that
I could not possibly be induced to approve of any liberal
measures. I ceased to offer myself to them, lest perchance
my importunity should seem to them treacherous or impu-
dent. In the meantime they did not cease to have secret
meetings among themselves, to invite some private individuals
to them, and to choose night and darkness for their clandes-
tine deliberations. And what great alarm this conduct of
theirs caused us, you may easily divine by your own conjec-
tures founded on the anxiety which you yourselves experi-
enced at that time.
At last the tribunes of the people enter on their office.
The assembly to be convened by Publius RuUus was anxiously
looked for, both because he was the chief mover of the agra-
rian law, and because he behaved with more violence than his
colleagues. From the moment that he was elected tribune,
he put on another expression of coimtenance, another tone
of voice, a different gait ; he went about in an old-fiEtshioned
dress, without any regard to neatness in his person, with
longer hair and a more abundant beard than before ; so that
he seemed by his eyes and by his whole aspect to |)e threaten-
ing every one with the power of the tribimes, and to be
meditating evil to the republic. I was waiting in expectation
of his law and of the assembly. At first no law at all is
proposed. Ho orders an assembly to be summoned as his
first measure. Men flock to it with the most eager expecta-
tion. He makes a long enough speech, expressed in very
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n. AOAIKST P. S. BULLUS. 219
good language. There was one thing which seemed to me
bad, and that was, that out of all the crowd there present,
not one man could be found who was able to understand what
he meant. ' Whether he did this with any insidious design,
or whether that is the sort of eloquence in which he takes
pleasure, I do not know. Still, if there was any one in the
assembly cleverer than another, he suspected that he was in-
tending to say something or other about an agrarian law. At
last, after I had been elected consul, the law is proposed pub-
licly. By my order several clerks meet at one time, and bring
me an accuiate copy of the law.
VI. I assure you with the most real sincerity, 0 Romans,
that I applied myself to the reading and understanding of this
law with these feelings, that if I had thought it well adapted
to your interests, and advantageous to them, I would have
been a chief mover in and promoter of it. For the consul-
ship has not, either by nature, or by any inherent diflFerence
of object, or by any instinctive hatred, any enmity against
the tribuneship, though good and fearless consuls have often
opposed seditious and worthless tribunes of the people, and
though the power of the tribunes has sometimes opposed the
capricious licentiousness of the consuls. It is not the dissimi-
larity of their powers, but the disunion of their minds, that
creates dissension between them. Therefore, I applied myself
to the consideration of the law with these feelings, that I
wished to find it calculated to promote your interests, and
such an one as a consul who was really, not in word only,
devoted to the people, might honestly and cheerfully advocate.
And from the first clause of the proposed law to the last, 0
Eomans, I find nothing else thought o^ nothing else intended,
nothing else aimed at, but to appoint ten kings of the treasury,
of the revenues, of all the provinces, of the whole of the
republic, of the kingdoms allied with us, of the free nations
confederate with us — ten lords of the whole world, under the
pretence and name of an agrarian law.
I do aspert to you, O Romans, that by this beautiful agra-
rian law, by this law calculated solely for the good of the
people, nothing whatever is given to you, everything is
sacrificed to a few particular men ; that lands are displayed
before the eyes of the Roman people, liberty is taken away
from them ; that the fortunes of some private individuals are
increased, the public wealth is exhausted; and lastly, which is
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220 GICEBO'S OBAnONEL
the most scandalous thing of all, that by means of a tribune
of the people, whom our ancestors designed to be the pro-
tector and guardian of liberty, kings are being established in
the city. And when I have shown to you all the grounds for
this statement, if they appear to you to be erroneous, I will
yield to your authority, I will abandon my own opinion. But
if you become aware that plots are laid against your liberty,
under a pretence of liberality, then do not hesitate, now that
you have a consul to assist you, to defend that liberty which
was earned by the sweat and blood of your ancestors, and
handed down to you, without any trouble on youf part
YII. The first clause in this agrarian law is one by which,
as they think, you are a little proved, to see with what feelings
you can bear a diminution of your liberty. For it orders
" the tribime of the people who has passed this law to create
ten decemvirs by the votes of seventeen tribes, so that
whomsoever a majority consisting of nine tribes elects, shall
be a decemvir." On this I ask, on what account the firamer of
this law has commenced his law and his measures in such a
manner, as to deprive the Roman people of its right of voting f
As often as agrarian laws have been passed, commissioners,
and triumvirs, and quinquevirs, and decemvirs have been
appointed. I ask this tribune of the people, who is so
attached to the people, whether they were ever created except
by the whole thirty-five tribes 1 In truth, as it is proper for
every power, and every command, and every charge which is
committed to any one, to proceed from the entire Roman
people, so especially ought those to do so, which are established
for any use and advantage of the Roman people ; as that is a
case in which they all together choose the man who they
think will most study the advants^ of the Roman people,
and in which also each individual among them by his own
zeal and his own vote assists to make a road by which he may
obtain some individual benefit for himself This is the tiibune
to whom it has occurred above all others to deprive the
Roman people of their sufirages, and to invite a few tribes,
not by any fixed condition of law, but by the kindness of lots
drawn, and by chance, to usurp the liberties belonging to alL
*' Also in the same manner," it says in the second clause, '' as
in the comitia for the election of a Pontifex Maximus." He
did not perceive even this, that our ancestors did really study
the good of the people so much, that> though it was not lawful
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II. AGAINST P. S. RULLU8. 221
for that ofi&ce to be conferred by the people, on account of the
religious ceremonies then used, still, they chose, in order to do
additional honour to the priesthood, that the sanction of the
people should be asked for it. And Cnseus Domitius, a tribune
of the people, and a most eminent man, passed the same law
with respect to the other priesthoods ; enacting, because the
people, on account of the requirements of religion, could not
confer the priesthoods, that a small half of the people should
be invited; and that whoever was selected by that ludf should
be chosen into their body by the sacred college. See now how
great a difference there is between Cnseus Domitius, a tribune
of the people, a man of the highest rank, and Publius RuUus,
who tried your patience, as I imagine, when he said that he
was a noble. Domitius contrived a way by which, as far as
he was able, as far as was consistent with the laws of men
and of gods, he might confer on a portion of the people what
could not be done by any regular proceeding on the part or
the entire people. But this man, when there was a thing
which had cdways belonged to the people, which no one had
ever impaired, and which no one had ever altered, — the prin-
ciple, namely, that those who were to assign lands to the.
people, shoiQd receive a kindness from the Boman people
before they conferred one on it ; that this man has endea-
voured entirely to take away from you, and to wrest out of
your hands. The one contrived somehow or other to give
that which could not really be given formally to the people ;
the other endeavours somehoT^ or other to take away from
them by manoeuvre, what could not possibly be taken from
them by direct power.
YIII. Some one will ask what was his purpose in such
injustice and such impudence. He was not without an object.
But good &ith towards the Roman people, just feelings to-
wards you and your liberty, he was utterly without For he
orders the man who has passed the law to hold the comitia
for the creation of the decemvirs. I will state the case more
plainly. Eullus, as a man far from being covetous or ambi-
tious, orders EiQlus to hold the comitia. I do not find f&vlt
yet. I see that others have done the same thing. Now see
what is the object of this, which no one else ever did, with
respect to the smaller half of the people. He will hold the
comitia ; he wishes to have the appointment of those officers
for whom kingly power is sought to be procured by this law.
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222 OICEBO*S ORATIONS.
He himself will not entrust it to the entire people, nor do
those who were the original instigators of these designs think
it ought to be entrusted to them. The same Rullus will
oast lots between the tribes. He, happy man, will pick out
the tribes which he prefers. Those decemvirs whom the nine
tribes selected by this same Rullus may choose to appoint, we
shall have, as I shall presently show, for our absolute masters
in everything. And they, that they may appear to be grateful
men, and to be mindful of kindness, will confess that fliey are
indebted to the leading men of these nine tribes. But as for
the other six-and-twenty tribes, there will be nothing which
they will not think that they have a right to refuse them.
Who are they, then, whom he means to have elected tribunes?
In the first place, himself. How can that be lawful 1 For
there are old laws, and those too not laws made by consuls, if
you think that that makes any difference, but made by tribunes,
very pleasing and agreeable to you and to your ancestors.
There is the Licinian law, and the second iEbutian law ; which
excepts not only the man who has caused a law to be passed
concerning any commission or power, but also all his colleagues
and all his connexions, and incapacitates them from being
appointed to any power or commission so established. In
truth, if you consult the interests of the people, remove your-
self fi:om all suspicion of any advantage to yourself; allow the
power to accrue to others, gratitude for the good you have
done must be enough for yourself For such conduct as this
is scarcely becoming in a free people, it is scarcely consistent
with your spirit and dignity.
IX. Who passed the law? Rullus. Who prevented the
greater portion of the people from having a vote 1 Rullus.
Who presided over the comitia 1 Who summoned to the elec-
tion whatever tribes^ he pleased, having drawn the lots for
them without any witness being present to see fair play? Who
appointed whatever decemvirs he chose ? This same Rullua
Whom did he appoint chief of the decemvirs ? Rullus. I
hardly believe that he could induce his own slaves to approve
of this j much less you, who are the masters of all nations.
Therefore, the most excellent laws will be rdj)ealed by this law
without ^e least suspicion of the fact. He will seek for a
commission for himself by virtue of his own law ; he will hold
comitia, though the greater portion of the people is stripped
of their votes ; he will appoint whomsoever he pleases, and
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II. AOAINST P. S. BULLUS. 223
himself among them ; and forsooth he will not reject his own
colleagues, the backers of this agrarian law ; by whom the first
place in the unpopularity which may possibly arise from
drawing the law, and from having his name at the head of it,
has indeed been conceded to him, but the profit from the
whole business, they, who in the hope of it are placed ia^this
position, reserve to themselves in equal shares with him.*
But now take notice of the diligence of the man, if indeed
you think that Rullus contrived this, or that it is a thing
which could possibly have occurred to Rullus. Those men
who first projected these measures saw, that, if you had tho
power of making your selection out of the whole people,
whatever the matter might be in which good faith, integrity,
virtue, and authority were required, you would beyond all
question entrust it to Cnceus Pompeius as the chief manager.
In truth, after you had chosen one man out of all the citizens,
and appointed him to conduct all your wars against all nations
by land and sea, they saw plainly that it was most natural
that, when you were appointing decemvirs, whether it was to
be looked on as committing a trust to, or conferring an honour
on a man, you would commit the business to him, and most
reasonable that he should have this compliment paid him.
Therefore, an exception is made by this law, mentioning not
youth, nor any legal impediment, nor any command or magis-
tracy, which might be encuml)ered with obstacles arising
either from the business with which it was already loaded, or
from the laws. There is not even an exception made in the
case of any convicted person, to prevent his being made a
decemvir. Cnseus Pompeius is excepted and disabled from
being elected a colleague of Publius Rullus (for I say nothing
of the rest). For he has worded the law so that only those
who are present can stand for the ofi&c© ; a clause which was
never yet found in any other law, not even in the laws con-
cerning those magistrates who are periodically elected. But
this clause was inserted, in order that if the law passed you
might not be able to give him a colleague who would be a
guardian over him, and a check upon his covetousness.
X. Here, since I see that you are moved by the dignity of
the man, and by the insult put upon him by this law, I will
return to the assertion that I made at the beginning, that a
' The last four lines of this paragraph are very corrupt in the original,
and there is a good deal of variety in the readings.
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224 GICERO*S ORATIONS.
kingly power is being erected, and your liberties entirely taken
away by this law. Did you think, otherwise, that when a few
men had cast the eyes of covetousness on all your possessions,
they would not in the very first place take care that Cnseus
Pompeius shoidd be removed from all power of protecting
your liberty, from all power to promote, from all commission
to watch over^^ and from aU means of protecting your in-
terests 1 They saw, and they see still, that if, through your
own imprudence and my negligence, you adopt this law,
without understanding its effect, you would afterwards, when
you were creating decemvirs, think it expedient to oppose
Cnasus Pompeius as your defence against aU defects and
wickednesses in the law. And is this a slight argument to
you, that these are men by whom dominion and power over
everything is sought, when you see that he, whom they see
will surely be the protector of your liberty, is the only one to
whom that dignity is denied ?
Now consider what a power is given to the decemvirs, and
how great is its extent In the first place he gives the decem-
virs the honour of a lex curiata.* But this is imheard-of • and
absolutely without precedent, that a magistracy should be
conferred by a lex curiata on a man who has not previously
received it in some comitia. He orders the law to be brought
in by that praetor who is appointed first prsetor. But how 1
In order that these men may receive the decemvirate whom
^ The comitia curiata, at which alone a lex curiata could be passed,
was a meeting of the populus of Rome, assembled in its tribes of
houses ; and no member of the pkbs could vote at such a meeting. They
met principally for the sake of confirming some ordinance of the senate ;
a senaiua consuUum was an indispensable preliminary, and with regard
to elections and laws, Uiey had merely the power of confirming or
rejecting what the senate had already decreed. The lex curiata (de
imperio),irh.ich. was the same as the auctoritas patrum, was necessary in
order to confer upon the dictator, the consuls, and the other magistrates
the imperium or military command. The comitia curiata were held by
the patrician magistrates, and they voted by their curies.
The comitia cetUuriata were the assembly of the populus 9Sid:pUbs
together, and they voted by their centuries by ballot.
The comitia tributa were not established till b. a 491. They were an
assembly of the people according to the local tribes into which the
Plebs was originally diyided. No qualification of birth or property was
necessary to enable a citizen to vote in the comitia tributa. They were
summoned by the tribuni plebis, who were also the preaidinff magis-
trates in general ; but the consuls or praetors might preside if they were
convoked for the election of inferior magistrate such as the quaestor,
propraetor, or proconsul Smith, Diet. Ant p. 274, v. Comitia, q, «,
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n. AGAINST P. S. RULLUB. 225
the people has elected. He has forgotten that none have been
elected by the common people. Here is a pretty fellow to
bind the whole world with laws, who does not recoUect in the
third clause what is set down in the second ! This, too, is quite
plain ; both what privileges you have received from your an-
cestors, and what is left to you by this tribune of the people.
XI. Our ancestors chose that you should give your votes
twice about every magistrate. For as a centuriata lex* was
passed for the censors, and a curiata lex for the other patrician
magistrates, by this means a decision was come to a second
time about the same men, in order that the people might have
an opportunity of correcting what they had done, if they
repented of the honour they had conferred on any one. Now,
because you have preserved the comitia centuriata and tributa,
the curiata have remained only for the sake of the auspices.
But this tribune of the people, because he saw that no man
could possibly have any authority conferred on him without
the authority of the burghers' or of the commonalty, con-
^ This and the preceding chapter are exceedingly obscure, and almost
nnintelligible to us ; perhaps also the text is a little corrupt. Manntius
says, " An exceedingly difficult passage, which has perplexed men of the
greatest ability and learning." His explanation is as follows : '• The
ancient Romans had chosen that the people should decide on the elec-
tion of every magistrate in two comitia ; but the magistracies are dis-
tinguished into patrician and plebeian; the patrician magistrates are
the qu88stor, the curule sedile, the praetor, the consul, and the censor ;
the plebeian are the tribune of the people, the sEKiile of the people, and
others. But there were two comitia first about the patrician magis-
trates before the plebeian ones were elected, namely the cetituricUa
comitia, and the curiata, 1 except the censors, who, although they were
patrician magistrates, still were elected by one comitia only, the centu-
riata. But when the plebeian magistrates were elected, then the
tribtUa comitia succeeded to the place of the curiata, for the curiaia had
nothing to do with the plebeian magistrates. For they were instituted
for the sake of the patrician magistrates long before the origin of the
plebeian ones. Some one may say. Why were not the centuriata taken
away for the same reason, as they were instituted by king Servins when
there were not yet any plebeian magistrates'? The answer is. In order
that there might be some comitia held with proper auspices at which
the patrician magistrates might be created, for the auspices were not
taken at the comitia tributa. As, therefore, in the case of the patrician
magistrates, (with the exception, as I have said before, of the censor,)
the peoi>le gave their votes first in the centuriata comitia and then in
the curiataf before the plebeian magistrates were elected; so, when
the plebeian magistrates were elected, the same people voted in ike cen-
turiata and tribttta comitia,"
* The Latin terms are p^^ua and plebe. For the best account of the
VOL. IL Q
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226 acEBo's orations.
firmed that authority which he proposed to give by the cuiiata
comitia, with which you have nothing to do, and took away
the comitia tributa which belonged to you. So, though your
ancestors intended you to decide at two comitia about each
magistrate, this man, so attached to the interests of the people,
did not leave the people the power of even one comitia. But
just note the scrupulousness and the diligence of the man.
He saw, and was thoroughly aware, that without a lex curiata
the decemvirs could not have authority, since they were elected
by only nine tribes. So he directs that there should be a
lex curiata passed about them, and orders the praetor to propose
it. How ridiculous such a contrivance was, it is no business
of mine to say. For he orders that "he who has been elected
first prsetor, shall propose a lex curiata ; but if he be unable
to propose it, then the last praetor shall do it" So that he
seems either to have been playing the fool in this business, or
else to have been aiming at something I know not what. But,
however, let us pass over this, which is either so perverse, or
so ridiculous, or so malicious and cunning, as to be unintelli-
gible, and return to the scrupulousness of the man. He
sees that nothing can be done by the decemvirs except by a
lex curiata. What was to happen afterwards, if a lex curiata
were not passed 1 Remark the ingenuity of the man. " Then,"
says he, "the decemvirs shall be in the same condition as
those who are appointed in the strictest accordance with the
law." If this can be brought about, that, in this city which is
fax superior to all other states in its rights of liberty, any one
may be able to obtain either military command or civil autho-
rity without the sanction of any comitia, then what is the
necessity for ordering in the third chapter that some one
shall propose a lex curiata, when in the fourth chapter you
permit men to have the same rights without a lex curiata,
which they would have if they were elected by the burghers
according to the strictest form of law? ^Kmga are being
appointed, 0 Romans, not decemvirs ; and they are starting
with such beginnings and on such foimdations, that the whole
of your rightsi, ^>^^ powers, and liberties are destroyed not
papylus to be found in a small space, see Smith's Diet. Ant. p. 726,
v. Patricii; and consult the same admirable book, p. 765, v. Plebea, or
pl^. The word potesku, which I have translated " authority," means
strictly only dvil aathority, in opposition to imperium, militaiy com-
mand.
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n. AGAINST P. S. RULLUS. 227
oply from the moment that they begin to act, bnt from
the moment that they are appointed.
XII. But remark how carefully he preserves the rights of
the tribunitian power. The consuls are often interrupted in
proposing a lex curiata, by the intercession of the tribunes of
the people. Not that we complain that the tribunes should
have this power ; only, if any one uses it in a random and in-
considerate manner, we form our own opinion.' But this
tribune of the people, by his lex ciiriata, which the prsetor is
to bring forward, takes away the power of intercession. And
while he is made to be blamed for causing the tribunitian
power to be diminished by his instrumentality, he is also to
be laughed at, because a consul, if he be not invested with the
authority by a lex curiata, has no power to interfere in mili-
tary affairs ; and yet he gives this man whom he prohibits
from interceding, tiie very same power, even if the veto be in-
terposed, as if a lex curiata had been passed. So that I am
at a loss to understand either why he prohibits the intercession,
or why he thinks that any one will intercede; as the interces-
sion will only prove the folly of the intercessor, and will not
hinder the business.
Let there then be decemvirs, appointed neither by the
genuine comitia, — ^that is to say, by the votes of the people, —
nor by that comitia convened in appearance, to keep up an
ancient custom, by the thirty lictors for the sake of the auspices.*
See now, also, how much greater honours he confers on these
men who have received no authority from you, than we have
received, to whom you have given the most ample authority.
He orders the decemvirs,* who have the care of the auspices,
to take auspices for the sake of conducting the colonies.
"According," says he, "to the same right which the triimivirs
had by the Sempronian law." Do you venture, 0 Eullus,
even to make mention of the Sempronian law 1 and does not
that law itself remind you that these triumvirs have been
created by the sufi&ages of the tribes ? And while you are
^ " In after times, when the comitia curiata were little more than a
matter of form, their suffrages were represented by the thirty lictors of
the curice, whose duty it was to summon the curicB, when the meetings
actually took place."— Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 278 a, v. Comitia, .
^ The Latin has, "decemviri puUariL" PnUariua was the officer
appointed to feed and take care of the sacred chickens that were kept
for the purpose of taking the auspices *, and much was inferred from the
way in which they took their food, or perhaps refused it.
q2
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228 OIOERO'S OBATIONS.
very for removed from the justice and modesty of Tiberius
Gracchus, do you think that a law made on so different a
principle ought to have the same authority 1
XIII. Besides all this, he gives them authority praetorian
in name, but kingly in reality. He describes their power, as
a power for five years ; but he makes it perpetual. , For he
strengthens it witti such bulwarks and defences that it will be
quite impossible to deprive them of it against their own con-
sent. Then he adorns them with apparitors, and secretaries,
and clerks, and criers, and architects; besides that, with
mules, and tents, and centimes,* and all sorts of furniture ; he
draws money for their expenses from the treasury ; he sup-
plies them with more money from the allies ; he appoints
them two hundred surveyors from the equestrian body every
year as their personal attendants, and also as ministers and
satellites of their power. You have now, 0 Romans, the
form and very appearance of tyrants ; you see all the ensigns
of power, but not yet the power itself For, perhaps, some one
may say, " Well, what harm do all those men, secretary,
lictor, crier, and chicken-feeder do me 1 " I will tell you.
These things are of such a nature that the man who has
them without their being conferred by your vote, must seem
either a monarch with intolerable power, or if he assumes
them as a private individual, a madman.
Just see what great authority they are invested with, and
you will say that it is not the insanity of private individuals,
but the immoderate arrogance of kings. First of aU, they are
entrusted with boundless power of acquiring enormous sums
of money out of your revenues, not by Arming them but by
alienating them. In the next place, they are allowed to
pursue an inquiry into the conduct of every coimtry and
of every nation, without any bench of judges ; to punish
without any right of appeal being allowed ; and to condemn
without there being any means of procuring a reversal of
their sentence. They will be able for five years to sit in
judgment on the consuls, or even on the tribunes of the
people themselves ; but all that .time no one will be able to
sit in judgment on them. They will be allowed to fill magis-
terial offices ; but they will not be allowed to be prosecuted.
They will have power to purchase lands, from whomsoever
they choose, whatever they choose, and at whatever price they
^ There is, no doubt, some oormption here in the text.
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n. AGAINST P. S. BULLUa. , 229
choose. They are allowed to establish new oolonies, to
recruit old ones, to fill all Italy with their colonists ; they
have absolute authority for visiting every province, for de-
priving free people of their lands, for giving or taking away
kingdoms, whenever they please. They may be at Rome
when it is convenient to them ; but they have a right also to
wander about wherever they like with supreme command,
and with a power of sitting in judgment on everything.
They are aHowed to put an end to all criminal trials ; to
remove from the tribunals whoever they think fit ; to decide
by themselves on the most important matters ; to delegate
their power to a queestor ; to send about surveyors ; and to
ratify whatever the surveyor has reported to that single de-
cemvir by whom he has been sent.
XIV. It is a defect in my language, O Eomans, when
I call this power a kingly power. For in truth, it is some-
thing much more considerable; for there never was any
kingly power that, if it was not defined by some express law,
was not at least understood to be subject to certain limita-
tions. But this power is absolutely unbounded ; it is one
within which all kingly powers, and your own imperial au-
thority, which is of such wide extent, and all other powers,
whether freely exercised by yomr permission, or existing only
by your tacit countenance, are, by express permission of the
law, comprehended.
The first thing which is given to them is, a liberty of
selling everything concerning the sale of which resolutions
of the senate were passed in the consulship of Marcus Tullius
and Cnseus Cornelius or afterwards. Why is this so obscure
and so concealed? What is the meaning of it ? Could not
those matters concerning which the senate passed resolutions,
be mentioned in the law by name ? There are two reasons
for this obscurity, O Romans ; one, a reason of modesty, if
there can be any modesty in such inordinate impudence;
the other, a reason of wickedness. For it does not dare to
name those things which the senate resolved were to be
sold, mentioning ihem by name ; for they are public places
in the city, they are shrines, which since the restoration of
the tribunitian power no one has touched, and which our
ancestors partly intended to be refuges in times of dan-
ger in the heart of the city. But all these things the
decemvirs will sell by this law of this tribune of the people.
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230 Cicero's orationb»
Besides them, there will be Mount Graurus ; besides that, there
will be the osier-beds at Mintumse; besides them, that very
saleable road to Herculaneum, a road of many delights
and of considerable value ; and many other things which the
senate considered it advisable to sell on account of the straits
to which the treasury was reduced, but which the consuls
did not sell on account of the unpopularity which would have
attended such a measure. However, perhaps it is owing to
shame that there is no mention of all these things in the law.
What is much more to be guarded against, what is a much
more real object of fear, is, that great power is permitted to
the boldness of these decemvirs of tampering with the public
docTunents, and forging decrees of the senate, which have
never been made ; as a great many of those men who have
bjcen consuls of late years are dead Unless, perhaps, I may
be told, that it is not reasonable for you to entertain any
suspicions of their audacity, for whose cupidity the whole
world appears too narrow.
XV. You see now one kind of sale, which I am aware
appears very important to you ; but pray give your attention
to what follows, and you will see that this is only a kind of
step and road to other measures. " Whatever lands, whatever
places, whatever buildings." What is there besides 1 There
is much property in slaves, in cattle, in bullion, in money, in
ivory, in robes, in furniture, in all sorts of other things.
What shall I say 1 Did he think it would cause unpopularity
to name all these things 1 He was not afraid of unpopularity.
What then was his motive 1 He thought the catalogue a long
one, and he was afraid of passing over anything ; so he wrote in
addition, " or anything else ;" by which brief fwrmula you see
that nothing can be omitted. Whatever, therefore, there is
out of Italy, that has been made the property of the Boman
people by Lucius Sylla and Quintus Pompeius in their consul-
ships, or afterwards, that he orders the decemvirs to sell. By
this clause, I say, 0 Romans, that aU nations, and people, and
provinces, and kingdoms, are given up and handed over to the
dominion, and judgment, and power of the decemvirs. This
is the first thing ; for I ask what place there is anywhere in
the world which the decemvirs may not be able to say has
been made the property of the Boman people ? For, when
the same person who has made the assertion is also to judge
of the truth of it, what is there which he may not say, when
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n. AGAINST P. S. BULLUS. 231
he is also the person to decide in the question 1 It will be
very convenient to say, that Pergamus, and Smyrna, and
Trdles, and Ephesus, and Miletus, and Cyzicus, and, in short,
all Asia, which has been recovered since the consulship of
Lucius Sylla and Quintus Pompeius, has become the property
of the Roman people. Will language fell him in which to
assert such a doctrine ? or, when the same person makes the
statement and judges of the truth of it, wiU it be' impossible
to induce him to give a false decision ? or, if he is imwilling
to pass sentence on Asia, will he not estimate at his own price
its release from the dread of condemnation ? What will he
say — (and it is quite impossible for any one to argue against
this, since it has been already settled and decided by you, and
since we have already voted it to be our inheritance,) — what
will he say to the kingdom of Bithynia 1 which has undoubt-
edly become the public property of the Roman people. Is
there any reason why the decemvirs should not sell all the
lands, and cities, and military stations and harbours, and in
short all Bithynia 1
XVI. What will they do at Mitylene ? which has undoubt-
edly become yours, 0 Romans, by the laws of war and by the
rights of victory; a city both by nature and situation, and by
the description of its houses, and by its general beauty, most
eminently remarkable ; and its lands are pleasant and pro-
ductive. That city, forsooth, comes imder the same head.
What will become of Alexandria, and of all Egypt? How
much it is out of sight ! how completely is it hidden ! how
stealthily is it abandoned entirely to the decemvirs ! For who
is there among you who is ignorant that that kingdom has
become the property of the Roman people by the will of king
Alexander 1 Here now I, the consul of the Roman people,
not only give no decision, but I do not even express my
opinion. For it appears to me a most important matter not
merely to decide on, but even to speak of. I see a man who
assures me that the will was certainly made ; I know that
there is a resolution of the senate extant to the effect that it
accepted the inheritance ; which was passed when, after the
death of Alexander, we sent ambassadors to Tyre, to recover
for the people money which had been deposited there by him.
I recollect that Lucius Philippus has often stated these things
positively in the senate. I see that is agreed upon by all men,
that he, who is at this present moment in possession of the
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232 GICEBO'S ORATIONS.
kingdom, is neither of the royal fiunily nor of any royal dis-
position.
It is said, on the other hand, that there is no will; that the
Roman people ought not to seem to covet every kingdom
under the sun; that our citizens will emigrate to those
regions, on accoimt of the fertihty of the soil, and the abun-
daLQce of everything which exists there. Will Publius Eullus,
with the rest of the decemvirs, his colleagues, decide upon so
important an affiur as this ? And which way will he decide f
For each alternative is so important that it is quite impossible
for you to entrust the decision to him, or to put up with his
sentence. Will he desire to be popular ? He will adjudge the
kingdom to the Roman people. In consequence, he will also,
in accordance with his own law, sell Alexandria, and sell
Egypt. He will be found to be the judge, the arbiter, the
master, of a most wealthy city, and of a most beautiful coun-
try ; ay, he will be found to be the king of a most opulent
kingdom. Will he abstain from taking all this 1 from desir-
ing aU this ? He will decide that Alexandria belongs to the
king ; he will by his sentence deprive the Roman people of it.
XVII. Now, in the first place, shall decemvirs give a deci-
sion about the inheritance of tlie Roman people, when you
require centumvirs to judge in the case of private inheritances?
In the next place, who is to plead the cause of the Roman
people 1 Where is the cause to be tried ? Who are thoser
decemvirs whom we think likely to adjudge the kingdom of
Alexandria to Ptolemy for nothmg 1 But, if Alexandria was
the object, why did not they at this time proceed by the same
course which they adopted in the consulship of Lucius Cotta
and Lucius Torquatus 1 Why did they not proceed openly, as
they did before ? Why did they not act as they did when they
before sought that country, in a straightforward and open
manner ? Did they, who, when they had a feir wind, could
not hold their course straight on to the kingdom they coveted,
think that they could reach Alexandria amid foul mists and
darkness ? * Just revolve these things in your minds
Foreign nations can scarcely endure our lieutenants, though
they are men of but slight authority, when they go on free
lieutenancies, on accoimt of some private business. For the
^ This sentence and the succeeding one are considered Teiy corrupt, and
there is a great Tariety of readings proposed ; for qui JStesiis some read
quietU iia ; for directo, decretp. ifnague is quite unintelligibie.
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U. AGAINST P. S. BULLUS. 233
name of power is a hard one to bear, and is dreaded even
in e^er so inconsiderable a person ; because, when they have
once left Kome they conduct their proceedings not in their
own name, but in yours. What do you suppose will happen,
when those decemvirs wander all over the world with liieir
supreme power, and their fesces, and their chosen band of
surveyors ? What do you suppose will be the feelings, what
the alarm, what the actual danger of those unhappy nations ?
Is there any terror in absolute power 1 they wiU endure it ; —
is there any expense entailed by the arrival of such men 1
they will bear it ; — are any presents exacted from them ? they
will not refuse them. But what a business is that, 0 Eomans,
when a decemvir, who either has come to some city after
being expected, as a guest, or imexpectedly, as a master, pro-
nounces that very place to which he has come, that identical
hospitable house in which he is received, to be the public
property of the Eoman people ? How great will be the misery
of the people if he says that it is so ! How great will be his
own private gain, if he says that it is not ! And the same
men who desire all this, are.accustomed sometimes"to complain
that every land and every sea has been put under the power of
CnsBus Pompeius. But are these two cases, the one, of many
things being entrusted to a man, the other, of everything being
sacrificed to him, at all similar ? Is there any resemblance be-
tween a man's being appointed a^ chief manager of a business
requiring toil and labour, and a man's having Qie chief share in
booty and gain allotted to him ? in a man's being sent to deliver
allies, and a man's being sent to oppress them ? Lastly, if
there be any extraordinary honour in question, does it make
no difference whether the Koman people confers that honour
on any one it chooses, or whether he impudently filches it
from the Roman people by an underhand trick of law ?
XVIII. You have now seen how many things and what
valuable things the decemvirs are likely to sell with the
sanction of the law. That is not enough. When they have
sated themselves with the blood of the ajlies, and of foreign
nations, and of kings, they wiU then cut the sinews of the
Eoman people ; they will lay hands on your revenues ; they
will break into your treasury. For a clause foUows, in which
he is not content witihi permitting, if by chance any money
should be wantmg, (which, however, can be amassed in such
quantities from the effect of the previous clauses^ that it
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234 OIOEBO'S OBATIONB.
ought not to be wanting,) but which actually (as if that was
likely to be the salvation of you all) orders and compels the
decemvirs to sell all your revenues, naming each item sepa-
rately. And do you now read to me in regular order, the
catalogue of the property of the Roman people which is for
sale according to the written provisions of this law. A cata-
logue which I think, in truth, will be miserable and grievous
to the very crier himself He is as prodigal a spendthrift
with regard to the property of the republic, as a private indi-
vidual is with regard to his own estate, who sells his woods,
before he sells his vineyards. You have gone all through
Italy, now go on into Sicily. There is nothing in that pro-
vince which your ancestors have left to, you €U3 your own
property, either in the towns or in the fields, which he does
not order to be sold. All that property, which, having been
gained by their recent victory, your ancestors left to you in
the cities and territories of the allies, as both a bond of peace
and a monument of war, will you now, though you received
it from them, sell it at this man's instigation 1 Here for a
moment I seem, 0 Romans, to move your feeliDgs, while I
make plain to you the plots which they think have escaped
evei*7 one's notice, as having been laid by them against the
dignity of CnsBus Pompeius. And, I beseech you, pardon
me if I am forced to make frequent mention of that man's
name. You, 0 Romans, imposed this character on me, two
years ago, in this very same place, and boimd me to share
with you in the protection of his dignity during his absence,
in whatever manner I could. I have hitherto done all that
I could, not because I was persuaded to it by my intimacy
with him, nor from any hope of honour, or of any most
honourable dignity ; which I have gained by your means, in
his absdhce, though no doubt with his perfect good-wilL
Wherefore, when I perceive that nearly the whole of this law
is made ready, as if it were an engine, for the object of over-
throwing his power, I wiU both resist the designs of the men
who have contrived it, and I wiU enable you not only to per-
ceive, but to be entire masters of the whole plot whidi I now
see in preparation.
XIX. He orders everything to 'be sold which belonged to
the people of Attalia, and of Phaselus, and of Olympus, and
the land of Agera, of-Orindia, and of Gedusa. All this became
your property owing to the campaigns and victory of that
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II. AOAINST P. 8. BULLUS. - 335
most illustrious man, Publius Servilius. He adds the royal
domain of Bithynia, which is at present fiirmed by the public
contractors; after that, he adds the lands belonging to Attains
in the Chersonesus ; and those in Macedonia, which belonged
to king Philip or king Perses; which also were let out to
contractors by the censors, and which are a most certain
revenue. He also puts up to auction the lands of the
Corinthians, rich and fertile lands j and those of the CyrenseanE^
wl4ch did belong to Apion; and the lands in Spain near
Carthagena ; and those in Africa near the old Carthage itself —
a place which Publius Africanus consecrated, not on account
of any religious feeling for the place itself and for its anti-
quity, but in accordance with the advice of his counsellors,
in order that the place itself might bear record of the disasters
of that people which had contended with us for the empire
of the world. But Scipio was not as diligent as Eullus is ;
or else, perhaps, he could not find a purchaser for that place.
However, among these royal districts, taken in our ancient
wars by the consummate valour of our generals, he adds the
royal lands of Mithridates, which were in Paphlagonia, and in
Pontus, and in Cappadocia, and orders the decemvirs to sell
them. Is it so indeed ? when no law has been passed to that
effect, when the words of our commander-in-chief have not
yet been heard, when the war is not yet over, when king
Mithridates, having lost his army, having been driven from
his kingdom, is even now planning something against us in
the most distant comers of the earth, and while he is still
defended by the Maeotis, and by those marshes, and by the
narrow defiles through which the only passes lie in those
coimtries, and by the height of the moimtains, from the
invincible band of Cnseus Pompeius; when our general is
actually engaged in the war against him; and while the name
of war still lingers in those districts ; shall the decemvirs
sell those lands over which the military command and civil
authority of Cnseus Pompeius still extends and ought to
extend, acconiing to the principles and usages of our ancestors?
And, I make no doubt, Publius Kullus (for he now conducts
himself in such a manner as shows that he already fancies
himself a decemvir elect) will hasten to attend that auction
in preference to every other.
XX. He, forsooth, before he arrives in Pontus, will send
letters to Cnseus Pompeius, of which I suppose a copy has
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236 0ICEBO*S ORATIONS.
already been composed in these terms : — " Publius Servilius
Rtdlus, tribune of the people, decemvir, to Cnseus Pompeius,
the son of Cnseus, greeting." I do not suppose that he will
add " Magnus ;" for it is not likely that he will grant him by
a word that dignity which he is endeavouring to diminish.
*' I wish you to take care to meet me at Sinope, and to bring
me assistance, while I am selling, in accordance with the pro-
visions of my law, those lands which you acquired by your
labour." Or will he not invite Pompeius ? Will he sell the
spoils of the general in his own province 1 Just place before
your eyes Rullus, in Pontus, holding his auction between
your camp and that of the enemy, and knocking down lands
surrounded by his beautiful band of surveyors. Nor does the
insult consist solely in this, though this is very preposterous,
and very unprecedented, that anything which has been ac-
quired in war, while the general is still carrying on the war,
diould be sold, or even let But these men have something
more in view than mere insult. They hope, if it is allowed
to the enemies of Cnseus Pompeius, not only to stroll about
other countries, but even to come to his very army with
absolute authority, with a power of sitting aa judges in every
case, with boundless power, and with countless sums of money,
that some plot may be laid against him himself, and that
something may be taken from his army, or power, or renown.
They think liiat, if the army reposes any hope in Cnseus
Pompeius with, respect to either lands, or any other advan-
tages, it will do so no longer when it sees that the supreme
power in all those matters is transferred to the decemvirs. I
am not concerned at those men being so foolish, as "to hope
for these things ; and so impudent, as to attempt to cause
them. What I do complain of is, that I am so much despised
by them, that they should select the period of my consuldiip,
of all times in the world, for seeking to bring about such pro-
digious absurdities.
And in the sale of all these lands and houses leave is given
to the decemvirs " to hold their sales in whatever places they
think fit." Oh their perverted senses ! Oh their licentious-
ness, so necessary to be checked ! Oh their profligate and
wicked intentions !
XXI. It is not lawful to let the revenues anywhere except
in this city, in this very spot, in the presence of this assembly
here present. Shall it be lawful for your own property to be
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n. AGAINST P. 8. RULLUS. 237
sold and alienated from you for ever in the darkness of Paph-
lagonia, or in the deserts of Cappadocia ? When Lucius Sylla
was selling at that fatal auction of his the property of citizens
who had not been condemned, and when he said that he was
selling his plunder, still he sold it on this spot where I am
standing now; nor did he venture to avoid the sight of those
men to whose eyes he was so hatefuL Shall the decemvirs
sell your revenues, not only where you yourselves are not
witnesses of the sale, but where there is not even a public
crier present as a spectator ?
Then follows — " All the lands out of Italy," without any
limit as to time, not (as was enacted before) those acquired by
Sylla and Pompeius when they were consuls. There is an
inquiry to be made by the decemvirs, whether the land be
private or public property; and by this means a heavy tax is
laid on the land. Who is there who does not see how great
a judicial power this is, how intolerable, how tyrannical ?
for them to be able, in whatever places they please, without
any discussion or formal decision, without any assessors, to
confiscate private property, and to release public property 1
In this clause the Recentoric district in Sicily is excepted;
which I am exceedingly delighted is excepted, 0 Romans,
both on account of my connexion with the people of that
district, and because of the justice of the exception. But
what impudence it is ! Those who are the occupiers of the
Recentoric district, defend themselves on the ground of length
of occupation, not of right ; they rely on the pity of the
senate, not on the conditions on which they hold their lands.
For they confess that it is part of the public domain ; but
itill they say that they ought not to be removed from their
possessions, and their much-loved homes, and their household
gods. But if the Recentoric district be private property, why
do you except it? But if it be public, where then is the
justice of allowing other lands, even if they are private lands,
to be adjudged to be public, and to except this district by
name which confesses that it is public property ? Therefore
the land of those men is excepted who have had any means
of influencing RuUus ; all other lands, wherever they are,
without any selection being made, without any examination
being instituted by the people, without any decision being
come to by the senate, are to be sold by the decemvirs.
XXII. There is also another profitable exoeption made in
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238 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
the former chapter according to which everything is to be
sold. An exception which comprehends those laiids which
are protected by treaty. He heard that this matter was often
agitated in the senate, not by me, but by others, and some-
times also in this place ; that king Hiemp^J was in possession
of lands on the sea coast, which Publius Africanns adjudged
to the Roman people ; and yet afterwards express provision
was made respecting them in a treaty, by Caius Cotta, when
consul. But, because you did not order this treaty to be
made, Hiempsal is in fear lest it may not be considered firm
and properly ratified. What 1 What sort • of proceeding is
this f Your decision is not waited for ; the whole treaty is
excepted. It is approved by Rullus. As it limits the power
of sale to be given to the decemvirs, I am glad of it ; as it
protects the interests of a king who is our friend, I find no
fault with it ; but my opinion is that the exception was not
made for nothing ; for there is constantly fluttering before
those men's eyes Juba, the king's son, whose purse is every
bit as long as his hair.
Even now there scarcely appears to be any place capable
of containing such vast heaps of money. He increases the
sums, he adds to them, he keeps on accumulating. "To
whomsoever gold or silver comes, firom spoils, from money
given for crowns, if it has neither been paid into the public
treasury, nor spent in any monument." Of that treasure he
orders a return to be made to the decemvirs, and the treasure
is to be paid over to them. By this clause you see that an
investigation even into the conduct of the most illustrious
men, ^mo have carried on the wars of the Roman people,
and that judicial examinations into charges of peculation or
extortion, are transferred to the decemvirs. They will have
a power of deciding what is the value of the spoils which
have been gained by each individual, what return he has
.made, and what he has left. But this law is laid down for all
your generals for the future, that, whoever leaves his province,
must make a return to these same decemvirs, of how much
booty, and spoils, and gold given for the purpose of crowns
he has. But here this admirable man excepts Cnseus Pom-
peius, whom he is so fond of. Whence does this affection so
sudden and previously unknown originate ) for he is excluded
from the honour of the decemvirate almost by name ; his
power of deciding judicially, of giving laws, or of making any
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U. AGAINST P. S. BULLUS.
formal inquiry respecting the lands which have been t
his valour, is taken from him ; decemvirs are sent e
into his province but into his very camp, with militar
rity, with immense simis of money, with imlimited
and with a right of deciding on.everything. His rig]
general, which have hitherto always been most jealou
served to every general, are for the first time taken frc
But he is excepted as the only one who is not bound 1
a return of his booty. Does it seem that the real o
this clause is to do honour to the man, or to excite a
of impopularity against him ?
XXIII. Cnseus Pompeius will make a present of
Rullus. He has no desire to avail himself of that b
of the law, and of the good-nature of the decemvirs,
it be just ifor generals not to devote their spoils anc
either to monuments of the immortal gods, or to the
tions of the city, — but if they are to carry it all to the
virs as their masters, — ^then Pompeius wishes for ]
particular for himself ; nothing. He wishes to live ui
common law, under the same law as the rest. If it be
0 Romans, — ^if it^e shameful, if it be intolerable f(
decemvirs to be appointed as comptrollers of all the
collected by every body, and as plunderers not only of
kings and citizens of foreign nations, but of even o
generals, then they do not seem to me to have e
Pompeius for the sake of doing him honour, but to b
that he may not be able to put up with the same ir
the rest But as Pompeius's feelings will be these, i
will think it becomes him to bear whatever seems fit
you ; on the other hand, if there be anything which you
bear, he will take care that you are not long compelled
it against your will. But the law makes a provisio
"if any money is received from any new source of i
after our consulship, the decemvirs are to be allowed
it.** Moreover, he sees that the new sources of rever
be those which Pompeius has added to the republic, u
he lets off his spoils, but thinks that it is right for
reap the benefit of all the revenues acquired by his
Let then, 0 Romans, all the money which there is
world come into the hands of the dictators ; let notl
omitted ; let every city, every district, every kingdo
lasUy even your own revenues be sold by them ; let th
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240 OICEBO'S ORATIONB.
won by your generals be added to the heap. Yon see now
what enormous, what incredible riches are sought to be ac-
quired by your decemvirs by such extensive sales, by so many
decisions which they have the power to make, and by such
unlimited authority over everyttiing.
XXIV. Now remark their other immense and intolerable
gains, in order to understand that this popular name of an
agrarian law has only been hunted out as a means of gratify-
ing the unreasonable avarice of particular men. He orders
lands to be bought with this money, to which you are to be
conducted as colonists. I am not accustomed, 0 Eomans, to
speak of men with unnecessary harshness unless I am pro-
voked. I wish it were possible for those men to be named *
by me without speaking ill of them, who hope to be them-
selves appointed decemvirs ; and you should quickly see what
sort of men they are to whom you have committed the power
of selling and buying everything. But, that which I have
made up my mind that I ought not to say, yet you can still
form an idea of in your minds. This one thing at all events
I appear to myself to be able to say with the greatest truth, —
that in former times when this republic had the Luscini, the
Calatini, the Acidini, men adorned not only with the honours
conferred on them by the people, and by their own great
exploits, but also by the patience with which they endured
poverty ; and_then also when the Catos, and the PhiU, and
Laelii lived, men whose wisdom and moderation you had
obtained a thorough knowledge of in public, and private, and
forensic, and domestic affairs ; still such a charge as this was
entrusted to no one, so as to allow the same man to be both
judge and seller, and to be so for five years over the whole
world, and also to have power to alienate the lands of the
Roman people from which their revenues are derived j and
when by these means he had amassed a vast sum of money
according to his own pleasure, without any witness, then he
was to buy whatever he pleased from any one he pleased.
Now then do you, 0 Romans, commit all these things to
these men whom you suspect of aiming at this decemvirate ;
you will find some of them to whom nothing appears suffi-
cient to possessf, some to whom nothing seems sufficient to
squander.
XXV. Here I will not discuss what is sufficiently notorious,
O Romans, or argue that it is not a custom handed down to
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II. AGAINST P. S. BULLUa , 241
you from your ancestors, that lands may be bought from
private individuals for the purpose of settling portions of the
common people in them by the public authority ; or that
there are not many laws by which private individuals have
been established in the public domains. I will admit that I
expected something of this sort from this illiterate and ill-
mannered tribune of the people ; but this most profitable and
at the same time most discreditable traffic in buying and
selling, I have always thought wholly inconsistent with the
duty of a tribune, wholly inconsistent with the dignity of the
Eoman people. They choose to purchase lands. First of all
I ask, What lands 1 in what sitimtions 1 I do not wish the
Eoman people to be kept in suspense and uncertainty with
obscure hopes and ignorant expectation. There is the Alban,
and the Setino, and the Privemate, and the Fundan, and the
Vescine, and the Falemian district j there is the (Strict of
Lintemum, and Cuma, and Casinum. I hear. €k)ing out at
the other gate there is the Capenate, and Faliscan, and Sabine
territory ; there are the lands of Reati, and Venafrum, and
AUiffiB, and Trebula. You have money enough to be able not
only to buy all these lands and others like them, but even to
surround them witihi a ring fence. Why do you not define
them, nor name them, so that at least the Boman people may
be able to consider what its own interests are — ^what is desirable
for it — ^how much trust it thinks it desirable to repose in you
in the matter of buying and selling things ? I do define
Italy, says he. It is a district sufficiently marked out. In-
deed, how little difference does it make whether you are led
down to the roots of the Massic Hill, or into some other part
of Italy, or somewhere else ! Come, you do not define the
exact spot. What do you mean 1 Do you mean the nature
of the land ? But, says he, the law does say, ''which can be
ploughed or cultivated." Which can be ploughed or culti-
vate^ he says ; not, which has been ploughed or cultivated.
Is this now a law, or is it an advertisement of some sale of
Neratius ;* in whose descriptions people used to find such
sentences as these : — " Two hundred acres in which an olive
garden may be made. Three hundred acres where vines can
be planted." Is this what you are going to buy with all your
countless sums of money, — something which can be ploughed
up or cultivated? Why, what soil is there so tiiin and
* It is unknoim who this man was; perii&pa some puffing auoUoneer*
YOL. n. B
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242 OICEBO'S OBATioira.
miserable that it cannot be broken up by a plough 1 or what,
is there which is such a complete bed of stones that the skiU
of an agriculturist cannot get something out of it ? Oh but,
says he, I cannot name any lands positively, because I touch
none against the wOl of the owner. This also is much more
profitable than if one took land from a man against his will.
For a calculation of gain will be entered into with reference
to your money, and then only wiU land be sold when the sale
is advantageous to both buyer and seller.
XXVI. But now see the force of this agrarian law. Even
those men who are in occupation of the public domains will
not quit possession, unless they are tempted by favourable
conditions and by a large sum of money. Matters- are
chained. Formerly when mention of an agraiian law was
made by a tribune of the people, immediately every one who
was in occupation of any public lands, or who had any pos-
sessions the tenure of which was in the least unpopular, began
to be alarmed. But this law enriches those men with for-
tunes, and relieves them from unpopularity. For how many
men, 0 Eomans, do you suppose there are, who are unable to
stand under the extent of their possessions, who are unequal
to bear the unpopularity incurred by the ownership of laiids
granted by Sylla ? who wish to sell them, but cannot find a
purchaser ? 'who, in fact, would be glad to get rid of those lands
by any means whatever 1 They who, a little while ago, were
in constant dread, day and night, of the name of a tribune ;
who feared your power, dreaded every mention of an agrarian
law j they now will be begged and entreated to be so good as
to give up to the decemvirs those lands which are partly
public property, the possession of which is full of impopularity
and danger, at their own price. And this song this tribune
of the people is singing now, not to you, but in his own heart
to himself. Hu has a father-in-law, a most excellent man,
who in those dark times of the republic got as much land as
he wanted. He now seeing him yielding, oppressed, weighed
down with the burdens which Sylla put upon him, wishes to
come to his assistance with this law of Ins, so as to enable
him to get rid of the odium attached to him, and to get a
sum of money too. And will not you hesitate to sell your
revenues, acquired by the profuse expenditure of labour and
blood on the part of your ancestors, for the purpose of
heaping more riches on the landowners who have become so
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II. AGAINST P. S. BULLU8. 243
through Sylla, and of releasmg them from danger? For
there are two kinds of lands concerned^ 0 Bomans, in this
purchase of the decemvirs. One of them the owners avoid
on accoimt of its unpopularity ; the 6ther on account of its
miserable condition. The land seized and distributed by
Sylla, and extended as far as possible by particular individuals,
has so much unpopularity attached to it, that it cannot bear
the rustle of a genuine fearless tribune of the people. All
this land, at whatever price it is purchased, will be returned
to you at a great price. There is another sort of lands —
uncultivated on account of their barrenness, desolate and
deserted on account of the unhealthiness of liie situation —
which will be bought of those men, who see that they must
abandon them if they do not sell them. And in truth, that
is what was said by this tribune of the people in the senate, —
that the common people of the city had too much influence
in the republic ; that it must be drained off. For this is the
expression which he used ; as if he were speaking of some
sewer, and not of a class of excellent citizens.
XXVII. But do you, 0 Eomans, if you will be guided by
me, preserve your present possession of popularity, of Uberty,
of your votes, of your dignity, of the city, of the forum, of
the games, of the days of festivals, and of all your other
enjoyments. Unless, by chance, you prefer leaving all these
things and this light of the repubUc, to be settled in the
midst of the droughts of Sipontum, or in the pestilential
districts of Salapia, under the leaderdiip of Kullus. But let
him tell us what lands he is going to buy; let him show what
he is going to give, and to whom he is going to give it. But
can you possibly, tell me, allow him the power of selling any
imaginable city, or land, or revenue, or kingdom that he
likes, and then buying some tract of sand or some swamp ?
Although this is a very remarkable point, that according to
this law everything is to be sold, all the money is to be col-
lected and amassed together, before one perch of ground is
bought. Then the law orders him to proceed to buy ; but
forbids any purchases to be made against the inclination of
the owner.
I ask now, suppose there is no one who is wilhng to sell,
what is to become of the money 1 The law says it is not to
be brought into the treasury. It forbids its being refunded.
The decemvirs, then, will keep all that money. Lsmd will not
b2
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244 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
be bought for you. After having alienated your revenues,
harassed your allies, drained the confederate kings and all
nations of their whole property, they will have the money,
and you will not have the lands. Oh, says he, they will
easily be induced by the magnitude of the simis offered to
seU the lands. Then the effect of the law is to be this : that
we are to sell our property at whatever price we can get for
it ; and that we are to buy other men's property at whatever
price they choose to put upon it. And does the law order
men to be conducted as settlers by those decemvirs, into those
lands which have been bought in accordance with the provi-
sions of this law?
What 1 Is not the whole plan of such a nature that it
does not make any difference to the republic whether a colony
is led into that place or not ? Is it a place which requires a
colony 1 * * * * *
And in this class of places, as in the other parts of the
republic, it is worth whUe to recollect the diligence exhibited
by our ancestors ; who established colonies in such suitable
places to guard against all suspicion of danger, that they
appeared to be not so much towns of Italy as bulwarks of the
empire. These men are going to lead colonies into those
lands which they have bought. Will they do so, even if it
be not for the interests of the republic to do so ? " And into
whatever places besides they shall think fit." What is the
reason, therefore, that they may not be able to settle a colony
on the Janiculan Hill ; and to place a garrison of their own
for their own protection on your heads and necks ? Will you
not define how many colonies you choose to have led forth,
into what districts they are to be led, and of what number of
colonists they are to consist 1 Will you occupy a place which
you consider suitable for the violence which perhaps you are
meditating ? Will you complete the number of the colony,
and will you strengthen it by whatever garrison you may
think advisable 1 Will you employ the revenues and all the
resources of the Eoman people to coerce and oppress the
Boman people itself, and to bring it under the dominion and
power of those intolerable decemvirs 1
XXVIII. But I beg you now, 0 Romans, to take notioe
how he is planning to besiege and occupy all Italy with his
garrison. He permits the decemvirs to lead colonists, whom-
soever he may choose to select, into every municipality $od
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n. AGAINST P. S. BULLUS. 245
into every colony in all Italy; and he orders lands to be
assigned to those colonists. Is there any obscurity here in the
way in which greater powers and greater defences than your
liberty can tolerate are sought after 1 Is there any obscmity
here in the manner in which kingly power is established ? Is
there any disguise about your liberty being wholly destroyed]
For when it is one and the same body of men who with their
resources lay siege, as it were, to all the riches and all the
population, — ^that is to say, to all Italy, — and who propose to
hold ail your liberties in blockade by their garrisons and
colonies, — what hope, ay, what possibility even is left to you
of ever recovering your liberty 1 But the Campanian district,
the most fertile section of the whole world, is to be divided
in accordance with the provisions of this law ; and a colony
is to be led to Capua, a most honourable and beautiful city.
But what can we say to this 1 I will speak first of your
advantage, 0 Romans. Then I will recur to the question of
honour and dignity ; so that, if any one takes particular
pleasure in the excellence of any town or any district, he may
not expect anything ; and if any one is influenced by the
idea of the dignity of the business, he may resist this ficti-
tious liberality. And first of all I wUl speak of the town, in
case there is any one whose fency is more taken with Capua
than with Eome. He orders five thousand colonists to be
enrolled for the purpose of being settled at Capua ; and to
make up this number, each of the decemvirs is to choose five
hundred men. I entreat you, do not deceive yourselves about
this matter. Consider it in its true light, and with due care.
Do you think that in this number there will be room for you
yourselves, or for any men like you — quiet, easy men 1 If
there be room for all of you, or even for the greater part of
you — although my regard for your honour compels me to
keep awake day and night, and to watch with eager eyes every
part of the republic— still I will close my eyes for a time, if
your advantage will be at all promoted by my doing so. But
if a place and a city is being looked out for five thousand
men, picked out as fit instruments for violence, and atrocity,
and slaughter, from which they may be able to make war, and
which may be able to equip them properly for war, — ^will you
stUl suffer a power to be raised and garrisons to be armed in
your own name against yourselves? Will you aUow cities and
lands and forces to be aiTayed against your interest ? For
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246 GIGERO'S ORATIONS.
they themselves have desired the Campanian district which
they hold out a hope of to you. They will lead thither their
own friends, in whose name they themselves may occupy it
and enjoy it Besides all this, they will make purchases; they
will add the other ten acres to their present estate. For if
they say that that is not lawful by the law; by the Cornelian
law it certainly is not. But we see (to say nothing about
lands at a distance) that the district of Prseneste is occupied
by a few people. And I do not see that anything is wanting
to their fortunes, except &rms of such a description that they
may be able by the supplies which they derive from them to
support their very large households, and the expense of their
farms near Ctunfie and Puteoli. But if he be thinking of
what is for your advantage, then let him come, and let him
discuss with me, fiice to face, the decision of the Campanian
district.
XXIX. I asked him on the first of January, to what men
he was going to distribute that land, and on what principles.
He answered that he should begin with the RomiMan tribe.
In the first place now, what is the object of such pride and
arrogance as to cut off one portion of the people, and to
neglect the order of the tribes 1 to contrive to give land to
the country people who have it already, before any is given
to the city people, to whom the hope of land and the pleasure
they are to derive from it is held out as an inducement 1 Or
if he says that this is not what he said, and if he has some
plan in his head to satisfy all of you, let him produce it; let
him allot it in divisions of ten acres ; let him put forth your
names in a regular arrangement from the. district of the
Subura to that of the Amus. If you perceive not only that
ten acres are not given to you, but that it is actually impos-
sible for such a body of men to be collected together in the
district of Campania, will you nevertheless allow the republic
to be harassed, liie majesty of the Eoman people to be despised,
and you yourselves to be deluded any longer by the tribune
of the people?
But if that land could possibly come to you, would you
not rather that it remained as part of your patrimony I
Will you allow the most beautifii estate belonging to the
Roman people — ^the main source of your riches, your chief
ornament in time of peace, yoiu" chief source of supply in
time of war, the foundation of yom: revenues, the granary
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n* A0AINST P. B. BULLUS. 247
from which your legions are fed, your consolation in time of
scarcity — ^tobe mined? Have you forgotten what great
armies you supported by means of the produce of Campania^
in the Italian war, when you had lost all your ordinary
sources of revenue 1 Are you ignorant that all those magni-
ficent revenues of the Eoman people are often dependent on
a very slight impulse of fortune — on a critical moment ? What
will all the harbours of Asia, what will the plains of Syria,
what will all our transmarine revenues avail us, if the very
slightest alarm of pirates or enemies be once given 1 But as
our revenues derived from the territory of Campania are of
such a nature that they are always at home, and that they are
protected by the bulwark of all our Italian towns, so they
are neither hostile to us in time of war, nor variable in their
productiveness, nor unfortimate from any accidents of climate
or soil.
Our ancestors were so fer from diminishing what they had
taken from the Campanians, that they even bought additional
lands to be added to it, from those from whom they could
not reasonably take it without purchase. For which reason,
neither the two Gracchi, who thought a great deal of what
was advantageous for the Koman people, nor Lucius Sylk,
who gave away everything without the slightest scruple to
any one he pleased, ever ventured to touch the Campanian
territory. Kullus was the first man to venture to remove the
republic from that property, of which neither the liberality
of the Gracchi nor the uncontrolled power of Sylla had
deprived it.
XXX. That land which now, as you pass by it, you say is
yours, and which foreigners whose road lies through it hear is
yours, when it is divided wOl neither be nor be said to be
yours. And who are the men who will possess it 1 In the '
first place they are active men, prepared for deeds of violence,
willing for sedition, who, the very moment the decemvirs clap
their hands, may be armed against the citizens and ready for
slaughter. In the next place, you wiU see the whole district
of Campania distributed among a few men already rich in
wealth and power. Meanwhile you, who have received from
your ancestors those most beautiful homes, if I may so say,
of your revenues, which they won by their arms, will not
have left to you one single clod of earth of all your paternal
hereditary possessions. And there will be this difference
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248 OICBRO'S ORATIONR.
between your diligence and that of private individuals, that
when Publius Lentulus, while he was chief of the senate,
had been sent into those parts by our ancestors, in order to
purchase at the public expense those lands^ being private pro-
perty, which projected into the public domain in Campania,
he is said to have reported that he had not been able to pur-
chase a certain man's estate for money ; and that he who had
refused to sell it, had given this reason why he could not
possibly be induced to sell it, that, though he had many
farms, this was the only farm from which he never had had
any bad news. Is it so 1 Did this reason weigh with a
private individual, and shall it not weigh with the Boman
people to prevent their giving up the district of Campania to
private individuals for nothing, at the request of Rullus ?
And the Roman people may say the very same thing about
this revenue, that he is said to have said about his farm. Asia
for many years during the Mithridatic war produced you no
revenue. There was no revenue from the Spains in the time
of Sertorius. Marcus Aquillius even lent com to the Sicilian
cities at the time of the Servile war. But firom this tributary
land no bad news was ever heard. Other of our revenues
are at times weighed down by the distresses of war ; but the
sinews of war are even supplied to us by this tributary land.
Besides, in this allotment of lands which is to take place,
even that, which is said in other cases, cannot be said here,
namely, that lands ought not to be left deserted by the people,
and without the cultivation of free men.
XXXI. For this is what I say, — ^if the Campanian land
be divided, the common people is driven out of and banished
from the lands, not settled and established in them. For the
whole of the Campanian district is cultivated and occupied
by the common people, and by a most virtuous and moderate
common people. And that race of men of most virtuous
habits, that race of excellent &rmers and excellent soldiers, is
wholly driven out by this tribune who is so devoted to the
people. And these miserable men, bom and brought up on
those lands, practised in tilling the ground, will have no place
to which, when so suddenly diiven out, they can betake tiiem-
selves. The entire possession of the Campanian district will
be given over to these robust, vigorous, and audacious satel-
lites of the decemvirs. And, as you now say of your ances-
tors, "Our ancestors leffc us these lands," so your posterity will
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II. AGAINST P. 8. BULLUS. 249
say of you, "Our ancestors received these lands from their
ancestors, but lost them." I think, indeed, that if the Campus
Martins were to be divided, and if every one of you had two
feet of standing ground allotted to him in it, still you would
prefer to enjoy the whole of it together, than for each indi-
vidual to have a small portion for his own private property.
Wherefore, even if some portion of these lands were to come
to every individual among you, — ^which is now indeed held out
to you as a lure, but is in radity destined for others, — ^still
they would be a more honourable possession to you when
possessed by the whole body, than if distributed in bits to
each citizen. But now when you are not to have any share
in them, but when they are being prepared for others and
taken from you, will you not most vigorously resist this law
as you would an armed enemy, fighting in defence of your
lands. He adds the Stellate plain to the Campanian district,
and in the two together he allots twelve acres to each settler.
As if the difference waa slight between the Stellate and Cam-
panian districts ! And now a multitude is sought out, by
which those towns are to be peopled. For I have said before
that leave is given by the law for them to occupy with their
settlers whatever mimicipalities and whatever old colonies
they choose. They will fill the mimicipality of Cales ; they
wiU overwhelm Teanum ; they wiU extend a chain of garrisons
through Atella, and CrunsB, and Naples, and Pompeii, and
Nuceria ; and the whole of Puteoli, whdch is at present a
free city, in the full enjoyment of its ancient rights and
liberties, they wiU occupy with a new people, and with a
foreign body of men.
XXXII. Then that standard of a Campanian colony, great^
to be dreaded by this empire, wiU be erected at Capua by the
decemvirs. Then that other Rome, which has been heard of
before, will be sought in opposition to this Rome, the common
coimtry of all of us. Impious men are endeavouring to
transfer our republic to that town in which our ancestors
decided that there should be no republic at all, when they
resolved that there were but three cities in the whole earth,
Carthage, Corinth, and Capua, which could aspire to the
power and name of the imperial city. Carthage has been
destroyed, because, both from its vast population, and from
the natural advantages of its situation, being surrounded with
harbours, and fortified with walls, it appeared to project out
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OIOERO S ORATIONS.
of Afirica, a^d to threaten the most productive islands of the
Eoman people. Of Corinth there is scarcely a vestige left.
For it was situated on the straits and in the very jaws of
Greece, in such a way that by land it held the keys of many
coimtries, and that it almost connected two seas, equally
desirable for purposes of navigation, which were separated by
the smallest possible distance. Tliese towns, though they
were out of the sight of the empire, our ancestors not only
crushed, but, as I have said before, utterly destroyed, that they
might never be able to recover and rise again and flourish.
Concerning Capua they deliberated much and long. Public
documents are extant, 0 Romans ; many resolutions of the
senate are extant. Those wise men decided that, if they took
away from the Campanians their lands, their magistrates, their
senate, and the public coimcil of that city, they would leave
no image whatever of the republic ; there would be no reason
whatever for their fearing Capua. Therefoite you will find
this written in ancient records, that there should be a city
which might be able to supply the means for the cultivation
of the Campanian district, thia,t there should be a place for
collecting the crops in, and storing them, in order that the
fiirmers, when wearied with the cultivation of the lands,
might avail themselves of the homes afforded them by the
city ; and that on that account the buildings of the city were
not destroyed.
XXXTII. See, now, how wide is the distance between the
coimsels of our ancestors and the insane projects of these
men. They chose Capua to be a refuge for our farmers, — a
market for the country people, — ^a barn and granary for the
Campanian district. These men, having expelled the farmers,
have wasted and squandered your revenues, are raising this
same Capua into the seat of a new republic, are preparing a
vast mass to be an enemy to the old republic. But if our
ancestors had thought that any one in such an illustrious
empire, in such an admirable constitution ias that of the
Boman people, would have been like Marcus Brutus or
Publius RuUus, (for these are the only two men wbom we
have hitherto seen, who have wished to transfer all tiiis
republic to Capua,) they would not, in truth, have left
even the name of that city in existence. But they thought,
that in the case of Corinth and Carthage, even if they had
taken away their senates and their magistrates, and deprived
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n. AGAINST P. a RULLUa 251
the citizens of the Iknds, still men would not be wanting who
would restore those cities, and change the existing state of
things in them before we could hear of it But here, under
the very eyes of the senate and Eoman people; they thought
that nothing could take place which might not be put down
and extinguished before it had got to any head, or had
assumed any definite shape. Nor did that matter deceive
those men, endued as they were with divine wisdom and
prudence. For after the consulship of Quintus Fulvius and
Quintus Fabius, by whom, when they were consuls, Capua
was defeated and taken, I will not say there has been nothing
done, but nothing has been even imagined in that city against
this republic.
Many wars ha^ve been waged since that time with kings, —
with Philip, and Antiochus, and Perses, and Pseudophilippus,
and Aristonicus, and Mithridates, and othera Many terrible
wars have existed beside — the Carthaginian, the Corinthian,
and the Numantian wara There have been also many
domestic seditions, which I pass over. There have been
wars with our allies, — the Fregellan war, the Marsic war ; in
all which domestic and foreign wars Capua has not only not
been any hindrance to us, but has afforded us most seasonable
assistance, in providing the means of war, in equipping our
armies, and receiving them in their houses and homea There
were no men in the city, who, by evil-disposed assemblies,
by turbulent resolutions of the senate, or by unjust exertions
of authority, threw the republic into conftision, and sought
pretexts for revolution. For no one had any power of
siuumoning an assembly, or of convening any public coimcil.
Men were not carried away by any desire for renown, because
where there are no honours publicly conferred, there there can
be no covetous desire of reputation. They were not quarrel-
ling with one another out of rivalry or out of ambition ;
for they had nothing left to quarrel about, — ^they had nothing
which they could seek for in opposition to one another, —
they had no room for dissensiona Therefore, it was in
accordance with a deliberate system, and with real wisdom,
that our ancestors changed the natural arrogance and in-
tolerable ferocity of the Campanians into a thoroughly
inactive and la^]^ tranquillity. And by this means they
avoided the reproach of cruelty, because they did not destroy
from off the face of Italy a most beautiM city ; and they
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252 CICEBO'S OR^TIONCL
provided well for the future, in that, having cut out all the
sinews of the city, they left the city itself enfeebled and
disabled.
XXXIY. These designs of our ancestors seemed, as I have
said before, blameable in the eyes of Marcus Brutus and
Publi\is Rullus. Nor, 0 PubU\is RuUus, do those omens
and auspices encoimtered by Marcus Brutus deter you from
similar madness. For both he who led a colony to Capua,
* * * * and they who took upon themselves
the magistracy there, and who had any share in the conduct-
ing^ colony to that spot, and in the honours to be had there,
or in the offices to be enjoyed there, have all suffered the
most terrible punishments allotted to tiie wicked. And since
I have made mention of Brutus and that time, I will also
relate what I saw myself when I had arrived at Capua, —
when the colony had been just established there by Lucius
Considius and Sextus Saltius the prsetors, (as they called
themselves,) that you may imderstand how much pride the
situation itself inspires its inhabitants with; so great that it
was very intelligible and visible when the colony had only
been settled there a few days. For in the first place, as
I said, though similar officers in the other colonies are called
duumvirs, these men chose to call themselves prsetors. But
if their first year of office inspired them with such desires as
that, do not you suppose that in a few years they would be
likely to take a fancy to the name of consuls 1 In the next
place, they were preceded by lictors, not with staves, but with
two fesces, just as Hctors go before the prsetors here. The
greater victims were placed in the forum, which, after they
had been approved by the college of priests, were sacrificed
at the voice of the (aier, and the music of a flute-player, by
the prsetors from their tribunal, as they are at Rome by us
who are consuls. After that, the conscript fathers were
summoned. But after this, it was almost more than one
could endure, to see the countenance of Considius. The
man whom we had seen at Rome shrivelled and wasted away,
in a contemptible and abject condition, when we saw him at
Capua with Campanian haughtiness and royal pride, we
seemed to be looking at the Magii, and Blossii, and Jubellii
And now, in what alarm all the common people were I In the
Alhoh and Seplaaan road, what crowds assembled, of men
inquiring what edict the pwetor had issued ? where he waa
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n. AGAINST P. S. BULLUS. 253
supping] what he had said? And we who had come to
Capua from Rome, were not called guests, but foreigners and
strangers.
XXXV. Ought we not to think that those men who fore-
saw all these things, 0 Romans, ought to be venerated aud
worshipped by us, and classed almost in the number of the
immortal gods? For what was it which they saw^ They
saw this, which I entreat you now to remark and take notice
of. Manners are not implanted in men so much by the
blood and family, as by those things which are suppHed by
the nature of the plan towards forming habits of life, by
which we are nourished, and by which we live. The Car-
thaginians, a fraudulent and lying nation, were tempted to
a fondness for deceiving by a desire of gain, not by their
blood, but by the character of their situation, because, owing
to the number of their harbours, they had frequent in-
tercourse with merchants and foreigners. The Ligurians,
being mountaineers, are a hardy and rustic tribe. The
land itself taught them to be so by producing nothing'
which was not extracted from it by skilful cultivation, and
by great labour. The Campanians were always proud from
the excellence of their soil, and the magnitude of their crops,
and the healthiness, and position, and beauty of their city.
From that abundance, and from this affluence in all things, in
the first place, originated those qualities ; arrogance, which
demanded of our ancestors that one of the consuls should be
chosen from Capua : and in the second place, that luxury
which conquered Hannibal himself by pleasure, who up to
that time had proved invincible in arms. When tiaose
decemvirs shall, in accordance with the law of Rullus, have
led six himdred colonists to that place ; when they shall
have established there a himdred decurions, ten augurs, and
six priests, what do you suppose their courage, and violence,
and ferocity will be then ? They will laugh at and despise
Rome, situated among mountains and valleys, stuck up, as it
were, and raised alofb, amid garrets, with not very good roads»
and with very narrow streets, in comparison with their own
Capua^ stretched out along a most t>pen plain, and in com-
parison of their own beautiful thoroughfares. And as for
the lands, they will not think the Vatican or Pupinian district
fit to be compared at aU to their fertile and luxuriant plaina
Aod all the abundance of neighbouring towns which surround
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254 Cicero's orations.
us they will compare in laughter and scorn with their neighs
hours. They will compare Labici, Fidense, Collatia, — even
Lanuviimi itself, and Aricia, and Tusculum, with Cales, and
Teanum, and Naples, and Puteoli, and Cumse, and Pompeii,
and Nuceria. By all these things they will be elated and
puflfed up, perhaps not at once, but certainly when they have
got a little more age and vigour they will not be able to
^restrain themselves ; they will go on farther and further.
A single individual, unless he be a man of great wisdom, can
scarcely, when placed in situations of great wealth or power,
contain himself within the limits of propriety ; much less
will those colonists, sought out and selected by RuUiw, and
others like Rullus, when established at Capua, in that abode
of pride, and in tha very home of luxury, refrain from
immediately contracting some wickedness and iniquity. Ay,
and it will be much more the case ?5\ith them, than with the
old genuine Campanians, because they were bom and trained
up in a fortime which was theirs of old, but were depraved
by a too great abundance of everything; but these men,
being transferred from the most extreme indigence to a cor-
responding affluence, will be affected, not only by the extent
of their riches, but also by the strangeness of them.
XXXVI. ' You, 0 Publius Rullus, have chosen to follow in
the footsteps of Marcus Brutus's wickedness, rather than to
be guided by the monuments of the wisdom of our ancestors.
You have flavoured all this with these advices of yours — to
sell the old revenues, and to waste the new ones, — ^to oppose
Capua to this city in a rivalry of dignity, — ^to subject all
cities, nations and provinces, all free peoples, and kings, and
the whole world in short, to your laws, and jurisdiction, and
power, in order that, when you have drained all the money
out of the treasury, and exacted all that may be due from
the taxes, and extorted all that you can from kings, and
nations, and even from our own generals, all men may still
be forced to pay money to you at your nod ; that you, also,
or your friends, may buy up from those who have become
possessed of them, as members of Sylla's party, their lands —
some of which produce too much unpopiilarity to their
owners to be worth keeping ; ,some of which are unhealthy,
and deserted on that account — an4 charge them to the Roman
people at whatever price you please ; that you may occupy
aU the municipalities and colonies of Italy with new settlers ;
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11 AGAINST P. S. HULLUS. 255
that you may establish colonies in whatever places you think
fit, and in aa many places as seems desirable to you ; that
you may surround, and hold in subjection, the whole republic
with your soldiers, and your cities, and your garrisons ; that
you may be able to proscribe and to deprive of the sight of
these men CnsDus Pompeius himself, by whose protection and
assistance the Eoman people has repeatedly been triumphant
over its most active enemies and its most worthless citizens ;
that there may be nothing, which is either capable of being
tampered with by means of gold and silver, or carried by
numbers and votes, or accomplished by force and violence,
which you do not hold in your own power, and imder your
dominion ; that meanwhile you may go at full speed through
every nation and every kingdom with the most absolute
power, — ^with unrestricted authority as judges, and with im-
mense sums of money ; that you may come into the camp
of Cnaeus Pompeius, and sell his very camp itself, if it be
desirable for you to do so ; that in the meantime, you, being
freed from every restraint of law, and from all fear of the
courts of justice, and from all danger, may be able to stand
for all the other magistracies ; so that no one may be able to
bring you before. the Roman people, or summon you before
any court, — so that the senate may not be able to compel you,
nor the consul to restrain you, nor the tribune of the people
to offer any impediment to you.
I do not wonder that you, men of such folly and intemper-
ance as you are, should have desired these things, — I do marvel
that you should have hoped that you could obtain them while
I am consul. For, as all consuls ought to exercise the greatest
care and diligence in the protection of the republic, so, above
all others, ought they to do so who have not been made
consuls in their cradles, but in the Campus. No ancestors of
mine went bail to the Roman people for me ; you gave credit
to me ; it is from me that you must claim what I am bound
to pay ; all your demands must be made on me. As, when
I stood for the consulship, no authors of my fomily recom-
mended me to you ; so, if I conmiit any fault, there are no
images of my ancestors which can beg me off from you.
XXXVII. Wherefore, if only life be granted me, as fer as' I
can I win defend the state from the wickedness and insidious
designs of those men. I promise you this, 0 Romans, with good
fidth; you have entrusted the republic to a vigilant man, not
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256 Cicero's okationb.
to a timid one ; to a diligent man, not to an idle one. I am
consul ; how should I fear an assembly of the people 1 How
should I be a&aid of the tribunes of the people 1 How should
I be frequently or causelessly agitated ? How should I fear lest
I may hEtve to dwell in a prison, if a tribune of the people
orders me to be led thither ? for I, armed with your arms,
adorned with your most honourable ensigns, and with com-
mand and authority conferred by you, have not been afraid to
advance into this place, and, with you for my backers, to
resist the wickedness of man ; nor dp I fear lest the republic,
being fortified with such strong protection, may be conquered
or overwhelmed by those men. If I had been afraid before,
still now, with this assembly, and this people, I should not
fear. For who ever had an assembly so well inclined to hear
him while advocating an agrarian law, as I have had while
arguing against oneT if, indeed, I can be said to be aiguing
against one, and not rather upsetting and destroying one.
From which, 0 Romans, it may be easily imderstood that
there is nothing so popular, as that which I, the consul of the
people, am this year bringing to you ; namely, peace, tran-
quillity and ease. All the things which when we were elected
you were afraid might happen, have been guarded against by
my prudence and caution. You not only will enjoy ease, —
you who have always wished for it ; but I will even make those
men quiet, to whom our quiet has been a source of annoyance.
In trutii, however, power, riches, are accustomed to be ac-
quired by them out of the tumults and dissensions of the
citizens. You, whose interest consists in the votes of the
people, whose liberty is based on the laws, whose honours
depend on the courts of justice and on the equity of the
magistrates, and whose enjoyment of your properties depends
on peace, ought to preserve tranquillity by every means. For
if those men who, on account of indolence, are hving in tran-
quillity, still take pleasiu-e in their own base indolence ; you,
S, in the calm quiet with which you govern fortune, you think
such a condition as you enjoy better, should maintain it dili-
gently ; not as one that has been acquired by laziness, but as
one Uiat has been earned by virtue.^ And I, by the iinani-
* This and the next sentence are given np as oormpt by eveiy one.
Many different readings have been proposed ; and I have endeavoured
to extract what appears to haye been Cicero's meaning from them^
keeping as closely as possible to the text of Orellios.
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m. AOAINST P., & BUI^iUS. 257
mity wliich I have established between myself and toy col-
league^ have provided against those men whom I knew to be
hostile to my consuMiip both in their dispositions and actions.
I have provided against everything; and I have sought to
recal those men to their loyalty. I have also given notice to
the tribunes of the people, to try no disorderly conduct while
I am consul My greatest and firmest support in our common
fortunes, 0 Romans, will be, if you for the future behave,
for the sake of it, to the republic in the same manner as
you have this day behaved to me in this most numerous as-
sembly, for the sake of your own safety. I promise you most
certainly, and pledge myself to manage matters so that they
who have envied the honours which I have gained, shall at
last confess, that in selecting a consul you ail showed the
greatest possible foresight.
THE THIRD SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO
' IN OPPOSITION TO
PUBLITJS SERVILIUS RULLUS, A TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE,
CONCERNING THE AGRARIAN LAW.
DRLIYBRBD TO THB PIOPLB.
THB ARaVMBNT.
!rhe tribunes had declined debating the subject of the Agrarian law
with Cicero before the people, but attacked him with calumnies
behind his back; saying that his opposition to the law proceeded
from his affection to Sylla's party, and from a desire to secure to the
members of it the properties which Sylla had granted to them, and
that he was only msJcing this opposition to this law out of a desire to
pay court to those whom they called the seven tyrants, the two LucuUi,
Crassus, Catulus, Hortensius, Metellus, and Philippus, who were
known to be the greatest favourers of Sylla's cause, and to have been
the chief gainers by it. And as these insinuations were making a
£preat impression on the city, he thought it necessary to make this
third speech to defend himself against them. And after this speech
the tribunes let the whole matter drop.
I. Thb tribunes of the people, 0 Romans, would have pursued
a more convenient course, if they had said to my face, in my
presence, the things which they allege to you concerning me«
VOL. IL 8
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258 OIOBRrfs ORATIONa
For then, they would have given you an opportunity for a
more just decision in the matter, and they would have followed
the usages of their predecessors, and have maintained their
own privileges and power. But, since they have shunned
any open contest and debate with me at present, now, if they
please, let them come forth into the assembly which I have
convened, and though they would not come forward willingly
when challenged by me, let them at least return^ to it now
that I openly invite them back.
I see, 0 Romans, that some men are making a noise to
imply something or other, and that they no longer show me
the same countenance in this present assembly which they
i^owed me at the last assembly in which I addressed you.
Wherefore, I entreat you, who have believed none of my
enemies' stories about me, to retain the same favourable dis-
position towards me that you always had; but from you,
whom I perceive to be a little changed towards me, I beg the
loan of your good opinion of me for a short time, on condition
of your retaining it for ever, if I prove to you what I am
going to say, but abandoning it and trampling it under Jtoot
in this very place if I fail to estabHsh it.
Your minds and ears, 0 Romans, are blocked up with the
•Bsertion that I am opposing the agrarian law and your in-
terest, out of a desire to gratify the seven tyrants, and the
other possessors of Sylla's allotments. If there be any men
who have believed these things, they must inevitably first have
believed this, that by this agrarian law which has been pro-
posed, the lands allotted by Sylla are taken away from their
present "possessors and divided among you, or else, that the
possessions of private individuals are diminidied, in order that
you may be settled on thefr lands. If I show you, not only
that not an atom of land of Sylla's allotments is taken from any
one, but even that that description of property is ensured to its
possessors, and confirmed in a most impudent manner ; if I
prove, that Rullus, by his law, provides so carefuUy for the
case of those lands which have been allotted by Sylla, that it is
perfectly plain that that law was drawn up, not by any pro-
tector of your interests, but by the twin law of Valgius ; is
there then any reason at all, why he should disparage not only
my diligence and prudence, but yours also, by the accusationa
which he has employed against me in my absence ?
II. The fortieth clause of the law is one^ O Romans, the
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III. AOAmWt p. S. BtLLUS. 259
mention of which I have hitherto purposely avoided, lest I
should seem to be reopening a wound of the republic whidi
was now scarred over, or to be renewing, at a most unseason-
able time, some of our old dissensions. And now too I will
argue that point, not because I do not think this present con-
dition of the republic deserving of being most zealously main-
tained, especially after I have professed myself to be for this
year at least the patron of all tranquiUity and imanimity in
the repubUc ; but in order to teach RuUus for the future to
be silent at least, in those matters with respect to which he
wishes silence to be observed as to himself and his actions.
Of all laws I think that one is the most unjust, and the most
imHke a law, which Lucius Flaccus, the interrex, passed re-
specting Sylla, — *' That everything which he had done should
be ratified." For, as in other states, when tyrants are esta-
blished, all laws are extinguished and destroyed, this man
estabhshed a tyrant of the republic by law. It is an invidious
law, as I said before ; but still it has some excuse. For it
appears to be a law not urged by the man but by the time.
What shall we say if this law is a far more impudent one 1
For by the Valerian and Cornelian law this power is taken
.away at the same time that it is given.* An impudent
courting of the people is joined with a bitter injury done to
them. But still a man from whom any property is taken
away has some hope arising from those laws ; and he, to
whom any is given, has some scruples. The provision in
Bullus's law is, " Whatever has been done since the consulship
of Caius Marius and Cnaeus Papirius." How careftdly does he
.avoid suspicion, when he names those consuls most especially
who were the greatest adversaries of Sylla. For, if he had
named Sylla, he thought that that would have been a pal-
pable and also an invidious measure. And yet, which of you
did he expect to be so stupid, as not to be able to recollect
that immediately after the consulship of those men Sylla
became dictator? What then does this Marian tribune of
the people say, when he is trying to make us, who are Sylla's
friends, unpopular ? " Whatever has been given, or assigned,
or sold, or granted by public authority, whether lands, or
houses, or laies, or marshes, or sites, or properties," (he has
omitted to mention the sky and sea, but he has omitted
^ There is. probably some corruption in the text here and in the next
few sentences; Orellins marks them with a f .
s2
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260 OICBRO'S ORATIONS.
nothing else,) "since the consulship of Marius and Carbo."
By whom, 0 RuUus 1 Who has allotted anything whatever
since the consulship of Marius and Carbo ? Who has given
anything, who has granted anything, except Sylla ? " Let
all those things remain in the same concfition." In what
condition? He is undermining something or other. This
over active and too energetic tribime of the people is rescind-
ing the acts of Sylla. " As those things which have become
private property according to the most regular possible course
of law." Are they then to be held on a surer tenure than a
man's paternal and hereditary property ? Just so. But the
Valerian law does not say this ; the Cornelian laws do not
sanction this ; Sylla himself does not demand this. If those
lands have any connexion with legal right, if they have any
resemblance to private property, if they have the least hope
of becoming permanent property, then there is not one of
those men so impudent as not to think that he is excellently
well treated. But you, 0 Rullus, what is your object 1 That
they may retain what they have got ? Who hinders them 1
That they may retain it aa private property 1 But the law is
framed in such a way that the ferm of your father-in-law in
the Hirpine district, or the whole Hirpine district, for he is
in possession of all of it, is held by him on a surer tenure
than my paternal hereditary estate at' Arpinum. For that is
the eflfect of the provision of your law. For those farms in
truth are held by the best right, which are held on the best
conditions^ Free tenures are held by a better tenure than
servile ones. By this clause all tenures which have hitherto
been servile^ tenures will be so no longer. Enifranchised
estates are in a better condition than those which are liable
to no obligations ; by the same clause all lands subject to the
payment of any fine, if only they were assigned by Sylla, are
released from such payments. Lands which are exempt from
payment are in a better condition than those which pay a
fine. I, in my Tusculan villa, must pay a tax for the Crabran*
water, because I received my estate subject to this liability;
but, if I had only had the land given^ me by Sylla, I should
not pay it^ according to the law of Rullus.
' Serva prcedia mean such estates as were liable to certain burdens
or duties ; held by the performance of certain services.
• The Crabra aqua is several times mentioned by Cicero in his letters
as a small artificial stream running through his Tusculan property. He
even had a law-suit re?pecting it, as appears from one of his letters.
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III. AGAINST P. S. RULLUS. 261
III. I see you, 0 Romans, moved either by the impudenoe
of the law or of the speech, as indeed you must be from the
nature of the case ; by the impudence of the law, which gives
a better title to estates possessed by virtue of Sylla's donation
than to hereditary property ; by the impudence of the speech
which, in such a cause as that, dares to accuse any one, and
yet vehemently, too vehemently, to defend the principles of
Sylla. But if the law only ratified all the allotments which
Imd been given by Sylla, I should not say a woM, provided
he would confess himself to be a partisan of Sylla's. But he
does not only protect their existing interests, but he even adds
to their present possessions some sort of gift. And he, who
accuses me, saying that the possessions resting on Sylla's title
are defended by me, not only confirms them himself, but even
institutes fresh allotments, and rises up among us a new
Sylla. For just take notice what great grants of lands this
reprover of ours endeavours to make by one single word.
" Whatever has been given, or presented, or granted, or sold **
— I can bear it ; I hear it ; what comes next ? — " shall be held
as absolute property." Has a tribime of the people ventured
to propose that whatever any one has become possessed of
since the consulship of Marius and Carbo, he shall hold by
the firmest right that any one can hold private property ]
Suppose he drove out the former proprietors by violence ?
Suppose he became possessed of it in some underhaiid manner,
or only by some one's permission for a time 1 By this law
then i\l civil rights, all Intimate titles, all interdicts of the
praetors will be put an end to. It is no unimportant case, it
is no insignifican;t injury that is concealed under this expres-
sion, 0 Bomans. For there were many estates confiscated by
the Cornelian law, which were never assigned or sold to any
one, but which are occupied in the most impudent manner
by a few men. These are the men for whom he provides,
these are the men whom he defends, whom he makes private
proprietors. These lands, I say, which Sylla gave to no one,
RuUus does not choose to assign to you, but to sacrifice to
the men who are in occupation of them. I ask the reason
why you shoidd allow those lands in Italy, in Sicily, in the
two Spains, in Macedonia, and Asia, which your ancestors
acquired for you, to be sold, when you see those lands which
are your own sacrificed by the same law to their existing occu-
piers ? Now you will understand the whole law, and perceive
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262 CICBROS ORATIONB.
that it is framed to secure the power of a few individTialc^
and admirably adapted to the circumstances of Sylla's allot-
ments. For this man's father-in-law is a most excellent man,
nor am I saying a word against his character ; but I am dis-
cussing the impudence of his son-in-law. For he wishes to
keep what he has got possession of, and does not conceal that
he is one of Sylla's party.
IV. He now, by your instrumentality, in order that he
may himself have what he has not got, wishes to establish
those titles which at present are doubtful. And as he is
more covetous than Sylla himself, I am accused of defending
the actions of Sylla which I am resisting. My father-in-law,
says he, has some hitherto deserted and distant fields. By
my law he will be able to sell them at his own price. He
holds them at present by an uncertain title ; in fact he has
no right at all to them : they will be confirmed to him by
the best possible title. He ha^ them as public property ; I
will make them private property. Lastly, he shall possess,
without having the slightest anxiety about them for the
future, those farms which he has procured (by the proscrip-
tion of their former owners) to be joined to the admirable
and productive estate which he had in the district of Casi-
num, being contiguous to it before ; so as to make all the
different farms into one uninteiTupted estate as fex as the eye
can reach ; and respecting which at present he is not without
apprehension.
And since I have shown for what reason and for whose
sake he has proposed this, let him show whether I am
defending any particular proprietor, while I resist this
agrarian law. You are selling the Scantian wood. The
Eoman people is in possession of it I am defending the
Roman people. You are dividing the district of Campania.
It is you, 0 Romans, who are now its proprietors. I wUl not
give it up. In the next place, I see possessions in Italy and
in Sicily, and in the other provinces, put up for sale and
advertised. The farms are yours, the possessions are yours,
0 Romans. I will resist and oppose such a measure ; and
1 wiU not permit the Roman people to be ousted from its
possessions by any one, while I am consul. Especially when
no advantage is sought for you by the proceeding. For you
ought no longer to lie under this mistake. Is any one of
you a man inclined to violence, or atrocity, or murder 1 Not
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jrOR 0. BABIBIUS. 263
one. And, believe me, it is for such a race of men as that
that the district of Campania and that beautiful Capua is
reserved. It is against you, against your liberty, against
Cneeus Pompeius that an army is being raised. Capua is
being got ready in opposition to this city ; bands of audacious
men are being equipped against you ; ten generals are being
appointed to counterbalance Cnaeus Pompeius. Let them
meet me face to face, and since they have summoned me to
this assembly of yours, at your request, let them here argue
the case with me.
THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF CAIUa
BABIRIUS, ACCUSED OF TREASON.
THE ARQUMENT.
In the year a. u. c. 654, Lucius Satuminus; a tribune of the people, had
been slain, in obedience to a decree of the senate, entrusting the
safety of the republic to the consuls Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius
Flaccus. Julius Csssar now suborned Titus Labienus, one of the
present tribunes, to prosecute Rabirius, as being the person who had
slain him, (the object of Caesar and his party being to put an end to,
or at least a check upon, that prerogative of the senate by which, in a
case of tumult, they could arm the city at once, by the customary vote,
"Videant confides nequid respiMica detrimenti capiat ;" in obedience
to which vote many seditious citizens had at different times been put
to death without any trial, and this privilege of the senate had been
a constant subject of complaint to the tribunes.) Julius Caesar pro-
cured himself to be appointed one' of the duumviri, or two judges,
who were to try the cause. Hortensius defended Rabirius, and
proved that, though it would have been perfectly legal for Rabirius to
slay Satuminus, still in point of fact he had nothing to do with his
death, as he had been slain by a slave, who for the action had been
emancipated by the people. Caesar, however, condemned Babirius,
who appealed to the people. And it was on the trial of this appeal that
the following oration was delivered. Labienus would not allow Cicero
to exceed half-an-hour in his defence ; and, to raise the greater indig-
nation against Babirius, he exposed the picture of Satuminus in the
rostra, as of one who had fallen a martyr to the liberties of the people.
When, after the defence was over, the people were proceeding to vote,
there was reason to apprehend some violence or foul play from the
intrigues of the tribune. Accordingly Metellus, who was augur and
also praetor "that year, contrived to dissolve the assembly before they
came to a vote; and the troubles that ensued in the latter part of the
year prevented any further attention being paid to the matter.
I. Although, 0 Romans, it is not my custom at the
beginning of a speech to give any reason why I am defending^
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264 cicero'b orations.
each particular defendant, because I baye always considered
tiiat the mere &ct of the danger of any citizen was quite
sufficient reason for my considering myself connected with
him, still, in this instance, when I come forward to defend
the life, and character, and all the fortunes of Caius Eabirius,
I think I ought to give a reason for my imdertaking this duty;
because the very same reason which has appeared to me a
most adequate one to prompt me to imdertie his defence,
ought also to appear to you sufficient to induce you to acquit
him. For the ancientness of my friendship with him, and the
dignity of the man, and a regard for humanity, and the unin-
terrupted practice of my life, have instigated me to defend
Caius Kabirius j and also the safety of the republic, my duty
as consul, the very feet of my being colisul, since when I was
made consul the safety of the republic, and also that of each
individual citizen in it was entrusted to me, compel me to do
so with the greatest zeal. For it is not the actual offence,
nor any desire to deprive Caius Rabirius in particular of life,
nor is it any old, well grounded, "serious enmity on the part
of any citizen, which has brought him into this peril of his
life. But the true design of this prosecution is, that that
great aid which the majesty of the state and our dominion
enjoys, and which has been handed down to us from our
ancestors, may be banished from the republic; that the
authority of the senate, and the absolute power of the consul,
and the unanimity of all good men, may henceforth be of no
avail against any mischief or ruin designed to the state ; and
therefore, as a handle for the destruction of all these weighty
obstacles, the old age, and infirmity, and solitary condition of
one man is attacked.
Wherefore, if it is the part of a virtuous consul when he
sees all the bulwarks of the repubUc undermined and
weakened, to come to the assistance of his country ; to bring
succour to the safety and fortunes of all men ; to implore the
good feith of the citizens ; to think his own safety of secondary
consideration when put in competition with the common safety
of all ; it is the part also of virtuous and fearless citizens,
such as you have diown yourself in all the emergencies of the
republic, to block up all the avenues of sedition, to fortify the
bulwarks of the state, to think that the supreme power is
vested in the consuls, the supreme wisdom in the senate ;
;*nd to judge the man who acts in obedience to them> worthy
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roB a RABiBius. 265
of praise and honour^ rather than of condemnation and
punishment. Wherefore the labour in defending this man
feUs principally to my share ; but the zeal for his preserva-
tion ought to be equaily felt by me and by you.
II. For you ought to think, 0 Romans, that, in the
memory of man, no afifair more important, more full of peril
to you, more necessary to be carefully watched by you, has
ever been undertaken by a tribune of the people, nor opposed
by a consul, nor brought before the Roman people. For ^
there is nothing less at stake, 0 Romans, in this trial, there
is no other object aimed at, than the preventing any public
council from being active for the future in the republic, any
union from being formed of good men against the frenzy and
insanity of wicked citizens ; any refuge, any protection, any
safety from existing at the most critical extremity of the
republic.
And, as this is the case, in the first place, (as is most
necessary to be done, in such a contest for a man's life and
reputation, and all his fortunes,) I entreat pardon and indul-
gence from the excellent and mighty Jupiter, and from all
file other immortal gods and goddesses ; by whose aid and
protection this republic is governed much more than by any
reason or wisdom of man. And I pray of them to grant that
this day may have dawned for the salvation of this man, and
for the welfare of the republic. And, in the second place, I
b^ and entreat you, 0 Romans, — you whose power comes
nearest to the divine authority of the. immortal gods, — that
since at one and the same time the life of Caius Rabirius, a
most unhappy and most innocent man, and the safety of the
republic is entrusted to your hands and to your votes, you
will display that mercy, as far as regards the fortunes of the
individual, and that wisdom in what concerns the safety of
the republic, which you are accustomed to exercise. |
Now, since, 0 Titus Labienus, you have sought to cramp
my industry by a narrow space of time, and have denied the
usual length of a defence which I was prepared to use, con«
fining me to a single half-hour, I will comply^ with the condi-
tions laid down by ^e accuser, (which is a most scandalous
thing to have to do,) and yield to the power of our enemy,
(which is a most miserable £ette for a man to be compelled
to,) although in prescribing to me this half-hour you have
lefb me only the part of an advocate, and have ignored my
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266 OICERO'S 0BATI0N8.
right as consul ; because, though this time will be nearly
sufficient for me to make our defence in, it will not allow
time enough for preferring the complaints which we are en-
titled to prefer. Unless, perhaps, you think it necessary for
me to reply to you at some length about the sacred places
and groves which you have said were violated by my cHent;
though in making this accusation you never said anything
more than that this charge had been made against Caius
Kabirius by Caius Macer. And with respect to this matter
I marvel that you recollect what. his enemy Macer accused
Caius Rabirius of, and forget what impartial judges, decided
on their oaths.
III. Must I needs make a long speech on the topics of
peculation, or of burning the registers? of which chai'ge
Caius Curtius, a relation of Caius Rabirius, was most honour-
ably acquitted, as was due to his virtue, by a most illustrious
bench of judges. But Rabirius himself not only was never
prosecuted on either of these charges, but never fell under
any the very slightest suspicion of them ; nor was any huch
idea ever breathed by any one. Or must I be careful to
reply to what has been said touching his sister's son 1 who,
you said, had been murdered by him, as he sought an excuse
for putting off the trial on the pretext of a domestic calamity.
For what is more natural than that his sister's husband should
be dearer to him than his sister's son 1 and so much dearer,
that he would deprive the one of life in a most cruel manner,
in order to gain a two days' adjournment of his trial for the
other? Or need I say much respecting the detention of
another man's slaves contrary to the Fabian law, or of the
scourging and putting to death of Roman citizens, contrary
to the Porcian law, when Caius Rabirius is honoured with
the zeal displayed in his behalf by all Apulia, and by the
eminent good-will of the state of Canipania ; and when not
only individuals, but I may almost say whole nations, have
flocked hither to deliver him from danger, brought' up from
a greater distance than his name as a neighbour of theirs on
their borders required? For why need I prepare a long
speech on that point, when it is set down in the count which
assesses the damages, that he had regard to neither his own
chastity nor to that of others ? Moreover, I suspect that it
was on that account that I was limited by Labienus to half
an hour, in order that I might not be able to say much on
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FOR 0. RABIRIUS. 267
this question of chastity. Therefore, you perceive that this
half-hour is too long for me to discuss those charges which
especially require the care of an advocate.
That other part, about the death ef Satiuninus, you
wished to be too short and narrow for my requirements ; and
it is one which requires and stands in need, not so much of
the ingenuity of an oratbr, as of the authority of a consul.
For as for the trial for trsason, which, when you accuse me,
you say has been put an end to by me, that is a charge
against me, and not against Kabirius. And I wish, 0_
Romans, that I was the first, or the only person, who hQ,d
abolished that in this republic. I wish diat that, which
he brings forward as a charge against me, might be an
evidence of my peculiar glory. For what can be desired by
any one which I should prefer to being said in my consulship
to have banished the executioner fi-om the forum, and the
gallows from the Campus ? But that credit belongs, in the
first instance, 0 Romans, to our ancestors, who, after the kings
had been expelled, did not choose to retain any vestige of
kingly cruelty among a free people ; and in the second in-
stance, to many gallant men, wjio thought it fit that yom*
liberty should not be an unpopular thing from the severity of
the punishments with which it was protected, but that it
should be defended by the lenity of the laws.
IV. Which, then, of us, 0 Labienus, is attached to the
best interests of the people 1 you who tliiuk that an execu-
tioner and chains ought to be put in operation against Roman
citizens in the very assembly of the people ; who order a
gallows to be planted and erecte J for the execution of citizens
in the Campus Martins, in the comitia centuriata, in a place
hallowed by the auspices.; or I, who forbid the assembly to
be polluted by tjtie contagion of an executioner — who think
that the forum of the Roman people ought to be purified
from all such traces of nefarious wickedness — who urge that
the assembly ought to be kept pure, the campus holy, the
person of every Roman citizen inviolate, and the rights of
liberty unimpaired 1 Of a truth, the tribune of the people
is very much devoted to the interests of the people, — is a
guarcfian and defender of its privileges and liberties ! The
Porcian law forbade a rod to be laid on the person of any
Roman citizen. This merciful man has brought back the
scourge. The Porcian law "protected the freedom of the
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268 CICERO*S ORATIONS.
citizens against the licton Labienus, that friend of the
people, has handed them over to the executioner. Caius
Gracchus passed a law that no trial should take place affect-
ing the life of a Roman citizen without your orders. This
friend of the people has compelled the duumvirs (without
any order of yours being issued on the subject) not only to
try a Roman citizen, but to condemn a Roman citizen to
death without hearing him in his own defence. Do you dare
to make mention to me of the Porcian law, or of Caius
Gracchus, or of the liberty of these men, or of any single
man who has really been a friend of the people, after having
attempted to violate the liberty of this people, to tempt their
merciful disposition, and to change the customs, not only
with unususd punidiments, but with a perfectly imheard-of
cruelty of language 1 For these expressions of yours, which
you, 0 merciful and people-loving man, are so fond of, " Go,
lictor, bind his hands," are not only not quite in character
with this liberty and this mercifiil disposition, but they
are not suited to the times even of Romulus or of Nimia
Pompilius. Those are the songs suited to the torments in
use in the time of Tarquin, that most haughty and in-
human monarch ; but you, 0 merciful man, 0 friend of the
people, delight to rehearse, "Cover his head — hang him
to the ill-omened tree," — words, 0 Romans, which in this
republic have long since been buried in the darkness of
antiqidty, and have been overwhelmed by the light of
liberty
V. I^ then, this had been a popular sort of proceeding, —
if it had had the least particle of equity or justice in it,
would Caius Gracchus have passed it over? Foraooth, I
suppose, the death of your uncle was a greater affliction to
you, than the loss of his brother was to Caius Gracchus.
And the death of that uncle whom you never saw is more
painful to you, than the death of that brother, with whom he
lived on the terms of the most cordial affection, was to him.
And you avenge the 'death of your imcle just as he
would have widied to avenge the death of his brother, if he
had been inclined to act on your principles. And that great
Labienus, your illustrious imcle, whoever he was, left quite
as great a regret behind him in the bosoms of the Roman
people, as Tiberius Gracchus left ? Was your piety greater
than that of Gracchus ? or your courage ? or your wisdom I
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FOR 0. RABIUniB. 269
or your wealth? or your influence? or your eloquence 1 And
yet all those quaUties, if he had had ever so little of them,
would have been thought great in him in comparison of your
qualifications. But as Caius Gracchus surpassed every one in
all these particulars, how great do you suppose must be the
distance which is interposed between him and you? But
Gracchus would rather have died a thousand times by the
most painful of deaths, than have allowed the executioner
to stand in that assembly — a man whom the laws of the
censors considered ought not only to be ejected out of the
forum, but even to be deprived of the sight of the sky, of
the breath of the atmosphere, and of a home in the city.
This man dares to call himself a friend of the people, and
me an enemy to your interests ; when he has himted out all
the cruelties of punishments and of harsh language, not only
as supplied by your recollection, and by that of your fathers,
but from aU the records of our annals, and all the histories
of the kings ; and I, with all my power, and all my ingenuity,
and all my eloquence, and all my energy, have opposed and
resisted his cruelty. Unless, perhaps; you are fond of such a
condition of existence as even slaves would not be able by
any possibility to bear, if they had not the hope of liberty
held out to them. The ignominy of a public trial is a
miserable thing, — ^the deprivation of a man's property by
way of penalty is a miserable thing, — exile is a miserable
thing ; but still, in all these disasters some trace of liberty
remains to one. Even if death be threatened, we may die
free men ; but the executioner, and the veiling of the head,
and the mere name of the gibbet, should be far removed,
not only from the persons of Roman citizens, — ^from their
thoughts, and eyes, and ears. For not pnly the actual fact
and endurance of all these things, but the b^e possibility of
being exposed to them, — ^thejexpectation, the mere mention of
them even, — ^is unworthy of a Roman citizen and of a free
man. Does not the kinchaess of their masters at one touch
deliver our slaves from the feat of all these punishments; and
shall neither our exploits, nor the purity of our past life, nor
the honours which you have conferred on us, save us from
the scourge, from the hangman's hook, and even from the
dread of the gibbet? Wherefore I confess, and even, ,0
Titus Labienus, I avow and openly allege that you have been
driven from that cruel, unreasonable, (1 will not say tribuni-
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270 CICERo's ORATIONS.
tian, ^but) tyrannical persecution, by my counsel, by my
virtue, and by my influence. And although in that prose-
cution you neglected all the precedents of our ancestors, all
the laws, all the authority of the senate, all religious feeling,
and even the public observance due to the auspices, still you
shall hear nothing of all this from me, now that I have so
little time to speak in. We shall have abundant opportunity
hereafter for a discussion on those points.
VI. At present we will speak of the accusation touching
the death of Satuminus, and of the death of your most
illustrious uncle. You say in impeachment of my client,
that Lucius Satuminus was slain by Caius Rabirius. And
Eabirius has already proved that to be false by the evidence
of many men, when Quintus Hortensius defended him at
great length. But I, if I had to begin the defcDce anew,
would brave this charge, would acknowledge its truth, would
avow it. I only wish that the state of my client's cause
would give me the opportimity of making this statement, —
that Lucius Satuminus, the enemy of the Roman people, was
slain by the hand ^of Caius Rabirius. That outcry has no
effect on me, but it rather consoles me, as it shows that
there are some citizens ignorant of the facts of the case, but
not many. Never, believe me, never would the Roman
people, which is silent around me, have made me consul,
if it had supposed that I was going to be distm-bed by
your clamour. How much less is your noise now ! Repress
your murmurs, the evidence of your folly, and the proof of
the scantiness of your numbers. I would, I say, willingly
confess, if I could with truth, or even if the cause were not
ali^ady discussed, that Lucius Satuminus was slain by the
hand of Caius Rabirius; and I should think it a most glorious
deed. But since I caimot do that, I will cpnfess this, which
will have less weight with regard to our credit, but not less
with regard to the accusation— I confess that Caius Rabirius
took up arms for the purpose of slaying Satuminus. What
is the matter, Labienus 1 What more weighty confession do
you expect from me ; or what greater charge did you expect
me to furnish against him ? Unless you think that there is any
difierence between him who slew the man, and him who was
in arms for the purpose of slaying him. If it was wrong for
Satuminus to be slain, then arras cannot have been taken
up against Satuminus without guilt;— if you admit that
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FOR C. RABIRIUS. 271
arms were lawfully taken up, — then you must inevitably
confess that he was rightly slain.
****♦♦
VII. A resolution of the senate is passed, that Caius
Marius and Lucius Valerius, the consuls, shall employ the
tribunes of the people and the praetors as they think fit ; and
shall take care that the empire and majesty of the Roman
people be preserved. They do employ all the tribunes of the
people except Satuminus, and all the praetors except Glaucia ;
they bid every one who desires the safety of the republic to
take arms and to follow them. Every one obeys. Arms are
distributed from the sacred buildings and from the public
armouries to the Roman people, Caius Marius the consul dis-
tributing them. Here now, to say nothing of other points,
I ask you yourself, 0 Labienus, when Saturninus in arms was
in possession of the Capitol ; when Glaucia, and Caius Saufeius,
and even that Gracchus^ just escaped from chains and the
gaol, were with him ; I will add, too, since you wish me to
do so, Quintus Labienus, your own uncle ; but in the forum
were Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius Flaccus the consuls,
behind them all the senate, and that senate, too, whom even
you yourselves (who try to render the conscript fathers of the
present day unpopular, in order the more easily to diminish
the power of the senate) are accustomed to extol ; when the
equestrian order — what men the Roman knights, O ye im-
mortal gods, then were ! — ^when they supported, as they did in
the time of our ftxthers, a great portion of the republic, and
the whole dignity of the courts of justice ; when all men, of
all ranks, who thought their own safety involved in the safety
of the republic, had taken arms; — what, then, was Caius
Rabirius to do 1 I ask you yourself, I say, 0 Labienus, —
when the consuls, in pursuance of the resolution of the
senate, had summoned the citizens to arms ; when Marcus
iEmilius, the chief of the senate, stood in arms in the assem-
bly ; who, though he could scarcely walk, thought the lame-
ness of his feet not an impediment to his pursuit of enemies,
but only to his flight from them; when, lastly, Quintus
* This was a man of the name of Equitius Tismo, whom Satuminus
gave out to be a son of Tiberius Gracchus. When Marius shut up the
prisoners who had surrendered in the Curia Hostilia, and the people
stripped off the roof, and threw the tiles down on them, this pseudo
Gracchus was slain among the others.
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272 CIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
Sceevola, worn out as he was with old age, enfeebled by
disease, lame, and crippled, and powerless in all his limbs,
leaning on his spear, displayed at the same time the vigour of
his mind and the weakness of his body ; when Lucius Metel-
lus, Sergius Gralba, Cai\is Serranus, Publius Rutilius, Caius
Fimbria, Quintus Catulus, and all the men of consular rank
who were then in existence, had taken arms in defence of the
common safety; when all the praetors, all the nobles and youth
of the city, united together, Cnseus and Lucius Domitius,
Lucius Crassus, Quintus Mucins, Caius Claudius, Marcus
Drusus; when all the Octavii, Metelli, Julii, Cassii, Catos
and Pompeii ; when Lucius Philippus, Lucius Scipio, when
Marcus Lepidus, when Decimus Brutus, when this very man
himself, Servilius, under whom you, 0 Labienus, have served
as your general ; when this Quintus Catulus, whom we see
here, then a very young man; when this Caius Curio ; when,
in ehort, every illustrious man in the city was with the
consuls ;— what then did it become Caius Rabirius to do 1
Was he to lie hid, shut up, and concealed in some dark place,
and to hide his cowardice under the protection of darkness
and walls 1 Or was he to go into the Capitol, and there join
himself to your uncle, and with the rest of those who were
fleeing to death, on account of the infamy of their lives ? Or
was he to unite with Marius, Scarius, Catulus, Metellus,
ScflBVola, — in short, with all virtuous men, in a community
not only of safety, but also of danger 1
VIIL Even you yourself, 0 Labienus, what would you do
in such a crisis f When your general system of indolence was
compelling you to flight and lurking-places, while the villany
and frenzy of Lucius Satuminus was inviting you to the Capitol,
while the consuls were summoning you to uphold the safety
and liberty of your country; which authority, which invita-
tion, which party would you prefer to follow, whose command
would you select to obey? My uncle says he was with
Satuminus. What if he was ? Whom was your father with I
— What if he was? Where were your relations, Roman
knights ? — ^What if he was ? What was the conduct of all
your prefecture, and district, and neighbourhood ? — What if
he was ? What was the conduct of the whole Picene district ;
did they follow the frenzy of the tribune, or the authority of
the consul ? In truth, I affirm this ; that that which you
confess of your uncle, no man has ever yet confessed with
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FOB 0. RABIBIUS. 273
respect to himself. No one, I say, has been found so pro-
fligate, so abandoned, so entirely destitute, not only of all
honesty, but of every resemblance of and pretence to honesty,
as to confess that he was in the Capitol with Satuminus. But
your uncle was. Let him have been ; and let him have been,
though not/ compelled by the desperate condition of his own
affairs, or by any domestic distresses and embarrassments. Sup-
pose it was his intimacy with Lucius Satuminus that induced
him to prefer his friendship to his country, — was that a reason
for Caius Rabirius also deserting the republic % for his not
appearing in that armed multittide of good men? for his
refusing obedience to the invitation and command of the
consul T But we see that in the nature of things he must have
adopted one of these three lines of conduct : he must either
have been with Satuminus, or with the good men, or he must
have been lying in bed : — ^to lie hid was a state equal to tho
most infamous death ; to be with Satuminus was the act
of insanity and wickedness. Virtue, and honour, and shame,
compelled him to range himself on the side of the consuls.
Do you, therefore, accuse Caius Rabirius on this accoimt, that
he was with those men whom he would have been utterly mad
to have opposed, utterly infemous if he had deserted them %
IX. But Caius Decianus, whom you often mention, was
condemned, because, when he was accusing, with the earnest
approval of all good men, a man notorious for every descrip-
tion of infiimy, Publius Furius, he dared to complain in the
assembly of the death of Satuminus. And Sextus Titius was
condemned for having an image of Lucius Satuminus in his
house. The Roman knights laid it down by that decision
that that man was a worthless citizen, and one who ought not
to be allowed to remain in the state, who either by keeping his
image sought, to do credit to the death of a man who was
seditious to such a degree ^as to become an enemy to the
republic, or who sought by pity to excite the regrets of
^ ignorant men, or who showed his own inclination to imitate
such villany. Therefore it does seem a marvellous thing to
me, where you, 0 Labienus, found this image which you have.
For after Sextus Titius was condemned, no one could be found
who would dare to have it in his possession. But if you had
heard of that, or if, from your age, you could have known it,
you certainly would never have brought that image, which, even
when conc^ed in his house, had brought ruin and exile on
VOL. II. T
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274 OICEBO'S 0BATI0M8.
Sextus Titius, into the rostrum, and into tbe assembly of the
people ; nor would you ever have driven your Oesigns on those
rocks on which you had seen the ship of Sextud Titius dashed
to pieces, and the fortunes of Caius Deciaims hopelessly
wrecked. But in all these matters you are erring out of
ignorance. For you have undertaken the advocacy of a cause
which is older than your own recollections; a cause which was
dead before you were bom ; that cause in whifch you yourself
would have been, if your age had allowed you to be so, you are
bringing before this court. Do you not understand, in the
first place, what sort of men, what sort of citizens they were
whom, now that they are dead, you are accusing of the greatest
wickedness ? Are you not aware, how many of those who are
still alive, you, by the same accusation, are bringing into peril
of their lives 1 For if Caius Rabirius committed a capital
crime in having borne arms against Lucius Sctuminus, yet
the age which he was then of might furnish him with some
excuse by which to secure himself from danger. But how are
we to defend Quintus Catulus, the father of this Catulus,
a man in whom the very highest wisdom, eminent virtue, and
singular humanity were combined? and Marcus ScauruB, a
man of great gravity, wisdom, and prudence ? or the two
Mucii, or Lucius Crassus, or Marcus Antonius, who was at
that time outside the cky with a guard ? all men than whom
there was no one of greater wisdom or ability in the whole
city ; or how are we to defend the othrr men of equal dignity,
the guardians and counsellors of the republic, who behaved in
the same way, now that they are dead ? What are we to
say about those most honourable men and most excellent
citizens, the Eoman knights, who then combined with the
senate in defence of the safety of the republic ? What are we
to say of the serarian tribunes,' and of the men of all the
other orders in the state, who then took up arms in defence of
the common liberties of all ?
» " The tribuni cerarii, who constituted an order in the latter days of
the republic, and who were, in fact, the representatives of the most
respectable plebeians, were originally heads of tribes, who acted as
general inspectors and collectors of tbe cea mUitare for the payment of
5ie troops." *• The charge of the treasury was originally entrusted to
the quaestors and their assistants, the tribuni cerariV* " Niebuhr sap-
poses that the tribuni cerarii^ who occur down to the end of the republic,
were only the successors of the tribunes of the tribes." Vide Smithf
Diet. Ant. pp. 19, 20, 987, vy. .Srarii, JErariumy Tribunus,
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FOB 0. RABIBIUB. 275
X. But why do I speak of all those men who obeyed the
command of the consids 1 What i^ to become of the reputa-
tion of the consuls themselves ? Are we to condemn Lucius
Flaccus, a man always most diligent in the service of the
republic, and in the discharge of his duty as a magistrate,
and in his priesthood, and in the religious ceremonies over
which he presided, as guilty of nefarious wickedness and
parricide, now that he is dead 1 And are we to unite with
him in this stigma and infamy, after death, the name of even
Caius Marius ? Are we, I say, to condemn Caius Marius now
that he is dead, as guilty of nefarious wickedness and parri-
cide, whom we may rightly entitle the father of his country,^
the parent of your liberties, and of this repubhc ? In truth,
if Titus Labienus thought himself entitled to erect a gibbet in
the Campus Martins for Caius Rabirius, because he took up
arms, what punishment ought to be devised for the man who
invited him to do so ? , And if a promise was given to Satur-
ninus, as is constantly asserted by you, it was not Caius
Rabirius, but Caius Marius who gave it ; and it was he too
who violated it, if indeed it was broken at all. But what pro-
mise, 0 Labienus, could be given except by a resolution of the
senate ? Are you so complete a stranger in this city, are you
so ignorant of our constitution and of our customs, as to be
ignorant of this 1 Are we to think that you are living as a
foreigner in a strange town, not bearing ofl&ce in your own
native city ? — " Well," says he, " but what harm can all this
now do Caius Marius, since he has no longer any feeling or any
life ?*' Is it so 1 Would Caius Marius have spent his life in
such labours and such dangers, if he had no hopes and no ideas
of any glory which was to extend beyond the limits of his own
life ? No doubt, when he had routed the countless armies of
the enemy in ItaJy, and when he had delivered the city from
siege, he thought that all his achievements would peridi with
himself. Such is not the truth, O Romans. Nor is there any
one among us who exerts himself amid the dangers of the
republic with virtue and glory, who is not induced to do so by
the hope he entertains of receiving his reward from posterity —
therefore, while there are many reasons why I think that the
souls of good men are divine and undying, this is the greatest
argument of all to my mind, that the more virtuous and wise
each individual is, the more thoroughly does his mind look
forward to the friture, so as to seem, in fact, to regard nothing
t2
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2? 6 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
except what is eternal. Wherefore, I call to witness the souls
of Caius Marius and of the other wise men and gallant
citizens which seem to me to have emigrated from life among
men to the holy habitations and sacred character of the gods,
that I think it my duty to contend for their fame, and gloiy,
and memory, no less than for the shrines and temples of my
native land ;. and that if I had to take up arms in defence of
their credit, I should take them up no less zealously than they
took them up in defence of the common safety. In truth,
0 Romans, nature haa given us but a limited space to live in,
but an endless period of glory.
XI. Wherefore, if we pay due honour to those who have
already died, we shall leave to ourselves a more favourable
condition after death. But i^ 0 Labienus, you neglect those
whom we are unable any longer to behold, do not you think
that at least , you ought to consult the interests of these
men whom you see before you] I say that there is no
one of all those men who were at Rome on that day, which
day you are now bringing as it were before the court, — ^that
there was no one of the youth of Rome, who did not take
arms and follow the consuls ; all those men, whose conduct
you can form a conjecture about from their age, are now
impeached by ^ou of a capital crime, by your attack upon
Caius Rabirius. But it was Rabirius who slew Satuminus.
1 wish that he had done so. I should not be deprecating punish-
ment for him ; I should demand a reward for him. In truth,
if his freedom was given to Scseva, a slave of Quintus Croto,
who did slay Lucius Satuminus, what reward ought to have
been given to a Roman knight in a similar case ? And if Caius
Marius, because he had caused drains to be cut, by which
water was supplied to the temple of the excellent and mighty
Jupiter, and because on the Capitoline Hill » ♦ ♦
XII. » * * * Therefore the senate, in its investigation
into that cause, when I was pleading before it, was neither more
diligent nor more severe than all of you were, when you by
your dispositions, by your hands, and by your voices, declared
your rejection of that distribution of the whole world, and of
that very district of Campania. ,
* All the last chapter was discovered by Kiebuhr in the Yatican, and
edited by him ; it was discoYered in a very corrupt and mutilated state,
but it is translated as he edited it with his own supplementary additions^
and completion of half legible words.
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FOR C. RABIRIU8. 277
I also proclaim, and assert, and denounce the same things
which he does who is the originator of this trial. There is no
king remaining, no nation, no people, whom you can fear.
There is no foreign or external evil which can insinuate itself
into this republic. If you wish this state to be inmiortal, if
you wish your empire to be eternal, if you wish your glory
to continue everlasting, then it is our own passions, it is the
turbulence and desire of revolution engendered among our own
citizens, it is intestine evil, it is domestic treason that must be
guarded against. And your ancestors have left you a great
protection against these evils in these words of the consul,
" Whoever wishes the republic to be safe." Protect the legiti-
mate use of these words, 0 Romans. Do not by your decision
take the republic out of my hands ; and do not take from the
republic its hope of liberty, its hope of safety, its hope of
' dignity. What should I do, if Titus Labienus were to make
a slaughter of the citizens, like Lucius Satuminus 1 if he were
to break open the prison? if he had occupied the Capitol with
armed men ) I should do what Caius ^£arius did. I should
refer the matter to the senate ; I should exhort you to defend
the republic. I myself in arms should, with your aid, resist
the armed enemy. Now, when there is no suspicion of arms,
when I see no weapons, when there is no violence, or slaugh^
ter, or occupation of the Capitol and citadel, but only a mis-
chievous prosecution, a cruel trial, a business undertaken by a
tribune of the people contrary to the interests of the republic,
I have not thought that I ought to summon you to arms, but
that it was sufficient to exhort you to give your votes against
those who are attacking your majesty. Therefore now I en-
treat, and beg, and implore all of you, not, as is the old
custom, ♦♦***♦♦
* * * is afraid. — He who has received on his front all
these scars, marks of his valour, in the cause of the republic,
fears to receive any wound on his reputation. He, whom no
attack of an enemy could ever move from his post, now is
frightened at this onset of his fellow-citizens, to which he must
necessarily yield. Nor does he how ask of you an opportunity
of living happily, but only one of dying honourably. He is
anxious now, not to enjoy his own home, but not to be
deprived of his family tomb. He now begs and prays for
nothing else at your hands, beyond your abstaining from de •
priving him of his legitimate fineral rites, and of the privilege
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378 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
of dying at home. He entreats yon to allow him, who has
never feared any danger of death in his country's cause, in that
country to die.
I have spoken now to the extent of the time allowed me by
the tribune of the people. I beg and entreat of you to think
this defence which I have made faithful as far as the danger of
my friend is concerned, and as far as the safety of the republic
is at stake, suited to the dignity, and to the duty of the
consul.
THE FIRST ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST LTJCIUS
CATILINA.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE.
THE ARQUMENT.
Lucius Catiline, a man of noble extraction, and vbo had already been
praetor, had been a competitor of Cicero's for the consulship ; the next
year he again offered himself for the office, practising such excessive
and open bribery, that Cicero published ane\<^law against it, with
the additional penalty of ten years' exile ; prohibiting likewise all
shows of gladiators from being exhibited by a candidate within two
years of the time of his suing for any magistracy, unless they were
ordered by the will of a person deceased. Catiline, who knew this
law to be aimed chiefly at him, formed a design to murder Cicero and
some others of the chief men of the senate, on the day of election,
which was fixed for the twentieth of October. Bat Cicero had infor-
mation of his plans, and laid them before the senate, on which the
election was deferred, that they might have time to deliberate on an
affair of so much importance. The day following, when the senate
met, he charged Catiline with having entertained this design, and
Catiline's behaviour had been so violent, that the senate passed the
decree to which they had occasionally recourse in times of imminent
danger from treason or sedition, *' Let the consuls take care that the
republic suffers no harm." This decree invested the consuls with abso-
lute power, and suspended all the ordinary forms of law, till the danger
was over. On this Cicero doubled his guards, introduced some addi-
tionfJ troops into the city, and when the elections came on, he wore a
breastplate under his robe for his protection ; by which precaution he
prevented Catiline from executing his design of murdering him and
his competitors for the consulship, of whom Decius Junius Silanus
and Lucius Licinius Murena were elected.
Catiline was rendered desperate by this his second defeat, and resolved
withont farther delay to attempt the execution of all his schemes.
His greatest hopes lay in Sylla's veteran soldiers, whose cause he had
idways espoused. They were scattered about in the different dis-
tricts and colonies of Italy ; but he had actually enlisted a consider-
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• I., AGAIKST Ju CATILINB. 279
able body of them in Etraria, and formed them into a little armj
nnder the command of Manlius, a centurion of considerable military
experience, who was only waiting for his orders. He was joined in
his conspiraw^ by several senators of profligate lives and desperate
fortunes^ of whom the chiefs were Publius Cornelius Lentulus, Caius
Cethegus, Publius Autronius, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Marcus
Porous Lecca, Publius Sylla, Serviliua Sylla, Quintus Curius, Lucius
Vj?.rgunteiu8, Quintus Annius, and Lucius Bestia. These men re-
solved that a general insurrection should be raised throughout all
Italy ; that Catiline should put himself at the head of the troops in
; ' Etruria; that Borne should be set on fire in many places at once; and
that a general massacre should be made of all the senate, and of all
their enemies, of whom none were to be spared but the sons of
Pompey, who were to be kept as hostages, and as a check upon their
^Either, who was in command in the east Lentulus was to be president
of their councils, Cassius was to manage the firing of the city, and
Cethegus the massacre. But, as the vigilance of Cicero was the
greatest obstacle to their success, Catiline desired to see him slain
before he left Home ; and two knights, parties to the conspiracy, under-
took to visit him early on pretence of business, and to kill him in his
bed. The name of one of them was Caius Cornelius.
Cicero, however, had information of all the designs of the conspirators,
as by the intrigues of a woman called Fulvia, the mistress of Curius,
he had gained- him over, and received regularly from him an account
of all their operations. He sent for some of the chief men of the city,
and informed them of the plot against himself, and even of the names
of the knights who were to come to his house, and of the hour at
which they were to come. When they did come they found the house
-carefully guarded, and all admission refused to them. He was
enabled also to disappoint an attempt made by Catiline to seize on
the town of Prseneste, which was a very strong fortress, and would
have been of great use to him. The meeting of the conspirators
had taken place on the evening of the sixth of November. On the
eighth Cicero summoned the senate to meet in the temple of Jupiter
in the Capitol, a place which was only used for this purpose on occa-
sions of great danger. (There had been previously several debates on
the subject of Catiline's treasons and design of murdering Cicero, and
a public reward had actually been offered to the first discoverer of the
plot. But Catiline had nevertHeless continued to dissemble; had
offered to give security for his behaviour, and to deliver himself to
the custody of any one whom the senate chose to name, even to that
of Cicero himself.) Catiline had the boldness to attend this meeting,
and all the senate, even his own most particular acquaintance, were
80 astonished at his impudence that none of them would salute him ;
the consnlar senators quitted that part of the house in which he sat,
and left the bench empty ; and Cicero himself was so provoked at his
audacity, that, instead of entering on any formal business, he addressed
himself directly to Catiline in the following invective.
I. When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing onr
patience % How long is that madness of yoiu^ still to mock ns?
When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of
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280 ClCERO's ORATIONS.
yours, swaggeriug about as it does now 1 Do i^ot the nightl j
guards placed on the Palatine Hill— do not the watches
posted throughout the city — does not the al^rm of the
people, and the union of afi good men— does ndi;^ the pre-
caution taken of assembling the senate in this most c^fensible
place — do not the looks and countenances of this veherable
body here present, have any effect upon you 1 Do youi not
feel that your plans are detected t Do you not see that yixor
conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by tfip
knowledge which every one here posses^ of it 1 What isV
there that you did last night, what the night before — ^where is ,
it that you were — ^who was there that you summoned to meet V^
you — ^what design was there which was adopted by you, with
which you think that any one of us is unacquaint^ ?
Shame on the age and on its principles ! The senate is aware
of these things ; the consul sees themi and yet this man
lives. Lives! aye, he comes even into tBSsenate. He takes a
part in the public deliberations ; he is watching and marking
down and checking off for slaughter every individual among
us. And we, gallant men that we are, think that we are doing
our duty to the republic if we keep out of the way of his
frenzied attacks.
You ought, 0 Catiline, long ago to have been led to execu-
tion by command of the consul. That destruction which you
have been long plotting against us ought to have already
fallen on your own head.
What 1 Did not that most illustrious man, Publius Scipio,'
the Pontifex Maximus, in his capacity of a private citizen, put
to death Tiberius Gracchus, though but slightly undermining
the constitution ? And shall we, who are t^e consuls, tolerate
Catiline, openly desirous to destroy the whole world with fire
and slaughter? For I pass over older instances, such as '
how Caius Servilius AhsJa with his own hand slew Spurius
Mselius when plotting a revolution in the state. There was •
— ^there was once such virtue in this republic, that brave men
would repress mischievous citizens with severer chastisement
than the most bitter enemy. For we have a resolution' of
^ This was Scipio Nasica» who called on the consul Mucins Scseyola
to do his duty and save the republic ; but as he refused to put any one
to death without a trial, Scipio called on all the citjzens to follow him,
and stormed the Capitol, which Gracchus had occupied with his pu^»
and slew many of the partisans of Gracchus, and Gracchus himselu
' This resolution was oouched in the form ** Yideant Consnles nequid
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I. AGAINST L. CATILINB. 281
the senate, a formidable and authoritative decree against you,
?w*^^°® ; the wisdom of the republic is not at fault, nor the
dignity of this senatorial body. We, we alone,— I say it openly,
— we^ the consuls, are wanting in our duty.
11. The senate once passed a decree that Lucius Opimius,
^e. consul, should take care that the republic suffered no injury.
Not one night elapsed. There was put to death, on some
Da^re suspicion of disaffection, Caius Gracchus, a man whose
family had borne the most unblemished reputation for many
generations. There was slain Marcus Fulvius, a man of con-
sular rank, and all his children. By a like decree of the
senate thejyii^ of the republic was entrusted to Caius
' ad Lucius Valerius, the consuls. Did not the ven-
geSnce of the republic, did not execution overtake Lucius
Satuminus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius, the
prsetor, without the delay of one single day ? But we, for
these twenty days, have been allowing the edge of the senate's
authority to grow blunt, as it were. For we are in possession
of a similar decree of the^senate, but we keep it locked up in
its parchment — buried, I may say, in the sheath; and accord-
ing to this xiecree you ought, 0 Catiline, to be put to death
this instant./ You live, — and you live, not to lay aside, but
to persist in your audacity.
I wish, 0 conscript fathers, to be merciful ; I wish not to
appear negligent amid such danger to the state ; but I do
now accuse myself of remissness and culpable inactivity. A
camp is pitched in Italy, at the entrance of Etruria, in hos-
tility to the republic; the number of the enemy increases every
day j and yet the general of that camp, the leader of those
enemies, we see within the walls — ay, and even in the senate,
— ^planning every day some internal injury to the republic. Ift
O Catiline, I should now order you to be arrested, to be put
to de^th, I should, I suppose, have to fear lest all good men
shonld say that I had acted tardily, rather than that any one
ahould affirm that I acted cruelly. But yet this, which ought
to have been done long since, I hieive good reason for not doing
as yot; I will put you to death, then, when there shall be not
VBspublica detrinienti capiat;*' and it exempted the consuls from all
obllg&tioQ to attend to the ordinary forms of law, and invested them
with absolute power over the Uvea of all the citizens who were intriguing
against the republia
' This is the same incident that is the rabject of the preceding ora-
tion in defence of Babirins.
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282 Cicero's oeations.
one person possible to be found so wicked, so abandoned, so
like yourself, as not to allow that it has been rightly done.
As long as one person exists who can dare to defend you, you
shall live; but you shall live as you do now, surrounded by
my many and trusty guards, so that you shall not be able to
stir one finger against the republic : many eyes and ears shall
still observe and watch you, as they have hitherto done, though
you shall not perceive them..
III. For what is there, 0 Catihne, that you can still expect,
if night is not able to veil your nefarious meetings in dark-
ness, and if private houses cannot conceal the voice of your
conspiracy within their walls ; — ^if everything is seen and dis-
played? Change your mind : trust me : forget the slaughter
and conflagration you are meditating. You are hemmed in
on all sides ; all your plans are clearer than the day to us; let
me remind you of them. Do you recollect that on the 2l8t
of October I said in the senate, that on a certain day, which
was to be the 27th of October, C. Manlius, the satellite and
servant of your audacity, would be in arms? Was I mis-
taken, Catiline, not only in so important, so atrocious, so in-
credible a fact, but, what is much more remarkable, in the
very day ? I said also in the senate that you had fixed the
massacre of the nobles for the 28th of October, when many
chief men of the senate had left Rome, not so much for the
sake of saving themselves as of checking your designs. Can
you deny that on that very day you were so hemmed in by
my guards and my vigilance, that you were unable to stir
one finger against the republic ; when you said that you
would be content with the flight of the rest, and the slaughter
of us who remained ? What 1 when you made sure that you
would be able to seize Prseneste on the first of November by
a nocturnal attack, did you not find that that colony was
fortified by my order,^ by my garrison, by my watchfulness
and care 1 You do nothing, you plan nothings you think of
nothing which I not only do not hear, but which I do not
see and know every particular of.
IV. Listen while I speak of the night before. You shall
now see that I watch far more actively for the safety than you
do for the destruction of the republic. I say that you came
the night before (I will say nothing obscurely) into the
Scythedealers' street, to the house of Marcus Lecca; that
many of your accomplices in the same insanity and wick^-
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I. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 283
ness came there too. Do you dare to deny it? Why are yoa
silent 1 I will prove it if you do deny it ; for I see here in
the senate some men who were there with you. .
0 ye immortal Gods, where on earth are we ? in what city
are we living ? what constitution is ours 1 There are here, —
here in our body, 0 conscript fathers, in this the most holy
and dignified assembly of the whole world, men who meditate
my death, and the death of all of us, and the destruction of
thjs city, and of the whole world. I, the consul, see them ;
I ask them their opinion about the republic, and I do not
yet attack, even by words, those who ought to be put to
death by the sword. You were, then, 0 Catiline, at Lecca's
that night; you divided Italy into sections; you settled where
every one was to go ; you fixed whom you were to leavcv at
Kome, whom you were to take with you ; you portioned out
the divisions of the city for conflagration ; you undertook
that you yourself would at once leave the city, and said that
there was then only this to delay you, that I was still alive.
Two Roman knights were found to deliver you from this
anxiety, and to promise that very night, before daybreak, to
day me in my bed. All this I kneT\ almost before your
rheeting had broken up. I strengthene(f and fortified my
house with a stronger guard ; I refused admittance, when they
came, to those whom you sent in the morning to salute me,
and of whom I had foretold to many eminent men that they
would come to me at that time.
V. As, then, this is the case, 0 Catiline, continue as you
have begun. Leave the city at last : the gates are open ;
depart. That Manlian camp of yours has been waiting too
long for you as its general. And lead forth with you all your
friends, or at least as many as you can ; purge the city of
your presence ; you will deliver me from a gi^eat fear, when
there is a wall between me and you. Among us you can
dwell no longer — I will not bear it, I will not permit it, I wifl
not tolerate it. Great thanks are due to the immortal gods,
and to this very Jupiter Stator, in whose temple we are, the
most ancient protector of this city, that we have already so
' often escaped so foul, so horrible, and so deadly an enemy to
the republic. . But the safety of the commonwealth must not
be too often allowed to be risked on one man. As long as
you, O Catiline, plotted against me while I was the consul
elect, I defended myself not with a public guard, but by my
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284 CICERO's ORATIONS.
own private diligence. When, in thfe next consular comitia,
you wished to day me when I was actually consul, and your
competitors also, in the Campus Martins, I checked your ne-
ferious attempt by the assistance and resources of my o^n
friends, without exciting any disturbance publicly. In short,
as often as you attacked me, I by myself opposed you, and
that, too, though I saw that my ruin was connected with
great disaster to the republic. But now you are openly at-
tacking the entire republic.
You are summoning to destruction and devastation the
temples of the immortal gods, the houses of the city, the lives
of all the citizens ; in short, all Italy. Wherefore, since I
do not yet venture to do that which is the betet thing, and
which belongs to my office and to the discipline of our ances-
tors, I will do that which is more merciful if we regard its
rigom*, and more expedient for the state. For if I order you
to be put to death, the rest of the conspirators will still re-
main in the republic ; if, as I have long been exhorting you,
you depart, your companions, those worthless dregs of the
republic, will be drawn off from the city too. What is the
matter, Catiline 1 Do you hesitate to do that when I order
you which you were already doing of yom: own accord ? Th^
consul orders an enemy to depart from the city. Do you ask
me. Are you to go into banishment? I do not order it ; but,
if yoit consult me, I advise it.
VI. For what is there, 0 Catiline, that can now afford you
any pleasure in this city ? for there is no one in it, except
that band of profligate conspirators of yours, who does not
fear you, — ^no one who does not hate you. What brand of
domestic baseness is not stamped upon your life 1 What dis-
graceful circumstance is wanting to your infamy in your pri-
vate affairs ? From what licentiousness have your eyes, from
what atrocity have your hands, from what iniquity haB your
whole body ever abstained 1 Is there one youth, when you
have once entangled him in the temptations of your corrup-
tion, to whom you have not held out a sword for audacious
crime, or a torch for licentious wickedness ?
What 1 when lately by the death of your former wife you
had made your house empty and ready for a new bridal, did you
not even add another incredible wickedness to this wickedness I
But I pass that over, and willingly allow it to be buried in
silence, that so horrible a crimo may not be seen to have
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I. AGAINST L. OATILINE. 285
existed in this city, and not to have been chastised. I pass over
the ruin of your fortune, which you know is hanging over you
against the ides of the very next month ; I come to those
things which relate not to the infiimy of your private vices,
not to your domestic difi&culties and baseness, but to the
welfere of the republic and to the lives and safety of us all.
Can the light of this life, 0 Catiline, can the breath of this
atmosphere be pleasant to you, when you know that there is
not one man of those here present who is ignorant that you,
on the last day of the year, when Lepidus and TuUus were
consuls, stood in the assembly armed ; that you had prepared
your hand for the slaughter of the consuls and chief men
of the state, and that no reason or fear of yours hindered
your, crime and madness, but the fortune of the republic?
And I say no more of these things, for they are not unknown
to every one. How often have you endeavoured to slay me,
both as consul elect and as actual consul ? how many shots of
yours, so aimed that they seemed impossible to be escaped,
have I avoided by some slight stooping aside, and some dodg-
ing, as it were, of my body? You attempt nothing, you execute
nothing, you devise nothing that can be kept hid jfrom me at
the proper time ; and yet you do not cease to attempt and to
contrive. How often already has that dagger of yours been
wrested from your hands ? how often has it slipped through
them by some chance, and dropped down ? and yet you can-
not any longer do without it ; and to what sacred mysteries
it is consecrated and devoted by you I know not, that you
think it necessriy to plunge it in the body of the consul.
VII. But now, what is that life of yours that you are lead-
ing? For I will -speak to you not so as to seem influenced
by the hatred I ought to feel, but by pity, nothing of which
is due to you. You came a little while ago into the senate :
in so numerous an assembly, who of so many friends and con-
nexions of yours saluted you ? If this in the memory of man
never happened to any one else, are you waiting for insults
by word of mouth, when you are overwhelmed by the most
irresistible condemnation of silence ? Is it nothing that at
your arrival all those seats were vacated ? that all the men of
consular rank, who had often been marked out by you for
slaughter, the very moment you sat down, left that part of
the benches bare and vacant ? With what feelings do you
think you ought to bear this ? On my honour, if my slaves
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290 OIOBEO'S ORATIONS.
to the Eomau people which has raised you, a man known only
by your own actions, of no ancestral renown, through aU
the degrees of honour at so early an age to the very highest
office, if from fear of unpopularity or of any danger you
neglect the safety of your fellow-citizens. But if you have
a fear of unpopular* y, is that arising from the imputation of
vigour and boldness, or that arising from that of inactivity
and indecision most to be feared ? When Italy is laid waste
by war, when cities are attacked and houses in flames, do you
not think that you will be then consumed by a perfect con-
flagration of hatred V
XII. To this holy address of the republic, and to the
feelings of those men who entertain the same opinion, I will
make this short answer : — If, 0 conscript fathers, I thought
it best that Catiline should be pimished with death, I would
not have given the space of one hour to this gladiator to live
in. If, forsooth, those excellent men and most illustrious
cities not only (Hd not pollute themselves, but even glorified
themselves by the blood of Satuminus, and the Gracchi, and
Flaccus, and many others of old time, surely I had no cause
to fear lest for slaying this parricidal murderer of the citizens
any unpopularity should accrue to me with posterity. A^d
if it did threaten me to ever so great a degree, yet I have
always been of the disposition to think unpopularity earned
by virtue and glory, not unpopularity.
Though there are some men in this body who either do
not see what threatens, or dissemble what they do see ; who
have fed the hope of Catiline by mild sentiments, and have
strengthened the rising conspiracy by not believing it; in-
fluenced by whose authority many, and they not wicked, but
only ignorant, if I punished him would say that I had acted
cruelly and tyranically. But I know that if he arrives at
the camp of Manlius to which he is going, there will be no
one so stupid as not to see t*lhat there has been a conspiracy,
no one so hardened as not to confess it. But if this man
alone we^ put to death, I know that this disease of the
republic woidd be only checked for awhile, not eradicated for
ever. But if he banishes himself and takes with him all his
friends, and collects at one point all the ruined men from
every quarter, then not only will this fuU-grown plague of
the republic be extinguished and eradicated, but also the root
and seed of all future evils.
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I. AGAINST L. OATILIKB. 291
XIII. We have now for a long- time, O conscript fethers^
lived among these dangers and machinations of conspi-
racy; but somehow or other, the ripeness of all wicked-
ness, and of this long-standing madness and audacity, has
come to a head at the time of my consulship. But if this man
alone is removed from this piratical ^w^ we may appear,
perhaps, for a short time relieved from tear and anxiety, but
the danger will settle down and lie hid in the veins and bowels
of the republic. As'it often happens that men afficted with a
severe disease, when they are tortured with heat and fever,
if they drink cold water, seem at first to be relieved, but after-
wards suffer more and more severely; so this disease which is
in the republic, if relieved by the punishment of this man, will
only get worse and worse, as the rest will be still alive.
Wherefore, 0 conscript fathers, let the worthless begone, —
let them separate themselves from the good, — ^let them collect
in one place, — ^let them, as I have often said before, be sepa-
rated from us by a wall; let thdiii i^etiso to plot against the
consul in his own house, — to surround the tribunal of the
city praetor, — to besiege the senate-house with swords, — to
prepare brands and torches to bum the city ; let it, in short,
be written on the brow of every citizen, what are his senti-
ments about the republic. I promise you this, 0 conscript
fathers, that there shall be so much diligence in us the con-
suls, so much authority in you, so much virtue in the
Eoman knights, so much imanimity in all good men, that
you shall see everything made plain and manifest by the
departure qf Catiline, — everything checked and punished.
With these omens, 0 Catiline, begone to your impious and
nefarious, war, to the great safety of the republic, to your
own misfortune and injury, and to the destruction of tiiose
who have joined themselves to you in every wickedness and
atrocity. 'JThen do you, 0 Jupiter, who were consecrated by
Bomulus with the same auspices as this city, whom we
rightly call the stay of this city and empire, repel this
man and his companions from your altars and from the other
temples, — from the houses and walls of the city, — from the
lives and fortunes of all the citizens; and overwhelm all the
enemies of good men, the foes of the republic, the robbers
of ^taly, men bound together by a treaty and in&mous
alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with eternal pimishments.
u2
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292 dOEBO'S ORATIONS.
THE SECOND ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST
LUCIUS CATILINA.
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
THE ARQITMEirT.
Catiline did not venture to make any reply to the former speech, but he
begged the senate not to be too hasty in believing eveiytbing which
was said to his prejudice by one who had always been his enemy, as
Cicero had ; and alleged his high birth, and the stake which he had
in the prosperity of the commonwealth, as arguments to make it
appear improbable that he should seek to injure it ; and called Cicero
a stranger, and a new inhabitant of Borne. But the senate inter-
rupted him with a general outcry, calling him traitor and parricide.
Upon which, being rendered furious and desperate, he declared aloud
what he had before said to Cato, that since he was circumvented and
driven headlong by his enemies, he would quench the flame which his
enemies were kindling around him in the common ruin. And so he
rushed out of the temple. On his arrival at his own house he held a bijef
conference with the other conspirators, in which it was resolved that
he should go at once to the camp of Manlius, and return as speedily
as he could at the head of the army which was there awaiting him.
Accordingly, that night he left Rome with a small retinue, and made the
best of his way towards Etruria. His friends gave out that he had
gone into voluntary banishment at Marseilles ; and spread that report
through the city the next morning, in order to excite odium against
Cicero, as having driven him out without any trial or proof of his guilt
But Cicero was aware of his motions, and knew that he had pre-
viously sent a quantity of arms, and military ensigns, and especially
A silver eagle which he had been used to keep in his own house with
a superstitious reverence, because it had been used by the great
^farius in his expedition against the Cimbri. However, he thought
it desirable to counteract the siory of his having gone into exile, and
therefore summoned the people into the forum, and made them the
following speech.
I. At length, 0 Romans, we have dismissed from the city, or
driven out, or, when he was departing of his own accord, we
have pursued with words, Lucius Catihne, m£^ with audacity,
breathing wickedness, impiously planning mischief to hla
oountry, threatening fire and sword to you and to this dty.
He is. gone, he has departed, he has disappeared, he has
rushed out. No injury will now be prepared against these
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"* II. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 293
walls within the walls themselves by that monster and pro-
digy of wickedness. And we have, without controversy,
defeated him, the sole general of this domestic war. For
now that dagger will no longer hover about our sides ; we
shall not be afraid in the campus, in the forum, in the senate-
house, — ay, and within our own private walls. He was moved
from his place when he was driven from the city. Now we
shall openly carry on a regular war with an enemy without
hindrance. Beyond all question we ruin the man ; we hav^
defeated him splendidly when we have driven him from secret
treachery into open warfere. But that he has not taken with
him his sword red with blood as he intended, — that he has
left us alive, — that we wrested the weapon from his hands,—-
that he has left the citizens safe and the city standing, what
great and overwhelming grief must you think that tins is to
him ! Now he lies prostrate, O Komans, and feels himself
stricken down and abject, and often casts back his eyes
towards this city, which he mourns over as snatched from his
jaw^ but which seems to me to rejoice at having vomited
forth such a pest, and cast it out of doors.
II. But if there be any one of that disposition which all
men should have, who yet blames me greatly for the very
thing in which my speech exults and triumphs, — ^namely, that
I did not arrest so capital mortal an enemy rather than let
him go, —that is not my fault, O citizens, but the fiiult of the
times. Lucius Catiline ought to have been visited with the
severest pimishment, and to have been put to death long
since ; and both the customs of our ancestors, and the rigour
of my office, and the republic, demanded this of me ; but
how many, tiiink you, were there who did not believe what
I reported? how many who out of stupidity did not think sol
how many who even defended him, — how many who, out of
tbeir own depravity, favoured him? I^ in truth, I had
thought that, if he were removed, all danger would be
removed from you, I would long since have cut oflF Lucius
Catiline, had it been at the risk, not only of my popularity,
but even of my life.
But as I saw that, since the matter was not even then
proved to all of you, if^ had punished him with death, as he
had deserved, I should be borne down by unpopularity, and so
be unable to follow up his accomplices, I brought the business
on to this point that you might be able to combat openly wh^
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S94 CICKBO'S ORATIONS.
you saw the enemy without di^oise. But how exceedingly
I think this enemy to be feared now that he is out of doois^
you may see from this, — that I am vexed ev^i that he has
gone from the city with but a small retinue. I wish he bad
taken with him all his forces. He has taken with him Ton-
gillus, with whom he had been said to have a criminal inti-
macy, and Publicius, and Munatius, whose debts contracted
in taverns coidd cause no great disquietude to the republic.
He has left behind him others — ^you all know what men they
are, how overwhelmed with debt, how powerful, how noble.
III. Therefore, with bur Gallic l^ons, and with the levies
which Quintus Metellus has raised in the Picenian and Gallic
territory, and with these troops which are every day being
got ready by us, I thoroughly despise that army composed of
desperate old men, of clownish profligates, and un^hicated
spendthrifts; of those who have preferred to desert iheir
bail rather than that army, and which will Ml to pieces if I
show them not the battle array of our army, but an edict of
the praetor. I wish he had taken with him those soldiers of
his, whom I see hovering about the forum, standing about the
senate-house, even coming itito the senate,, who shine with
ointment, who glitter in purple ; and if they remain here,
remember that tliat army is not so much to be feared by us
as these men who have deserted the army. And they are the
more to be feared, because they are aware that I know what
they are thinking o^ and yet they are not influenced by it
I know to whom Apulia has been allotted, who has Etruria,
who the Picenian territory, who the GraUic district, who has
begged for himself the office of spreading fire and sword by
night through tfee city. They know that all the plaim
of the preceding night are brought to me. I laid them
before the senate yesterday. Catiline himself was alarmed,
and fled. Why do these men wait I Verily, they are greatly
mistaken if they think that former lenity of mine will la^
for ever.
IV. What I have been waiting for, that I have gained, —
namely, that you shoidd all see that a conspiracy has been
openly formed against the republic; imless, inde^, there be
any one who thinks that those who are like Catiline do not
agree with Catiline. There is not any longer room for lenity;
the business itself demands severity. One thing, even now,
I will grant,^let them depart, let them begone. Let them
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II. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 295
not suffer the unhappy Catiline to pine away for want of
them. I will tell them the road. He went by the Aurelian
road. If they make haste, they will catch him by the
evening. 0 happy republic, if it can cast forth these dregs of
the republic ! Even now, when Catiline alone is got rid o^ the
republic seems to me relieved and refireshed ; for what evil
or wickedness can be devised or imagined which he did not
conceive 1 What prisoner, what gladiator, what thief, what
assassin, what parricide, what forger of wills, what cheat,
what debauchee, what spendthrift, what adulterer, what
abandoned woman, what corrupter of youth, what profli-
gate, what scoundrel can be found in all Italy, who does not
avow that he has been on terms of intimacy with Catiline 1
What murder has been committed for years without him ?
What nefarious act of infamy that has not been done by
him]
But in what other man were there ever so many allure-
ments for youth as in him, who both indulged in infamous
love for others, and encouraged their infitmous affections for
himself, promising to some enjoyment of their lust, to others
the death of their parents, and not only instigating them to
iniquity, but even assisting them in it But now, how sud-
denly had he collected, not only out of the city, but even
out of the coimtry, a number of abandoned men ? No one,
not only at Bome, but in every Corner of Italy, was over-
• whelmed with debt whom he did not enlist in this incredible
association of wickedness.
V. And, that you may understand the diversity of his
pursuits and the variety of his designs, there was no one in
any school of gladiators, at all inclined to audacity, who does
not avow himself to be an intimate friend of Catiline, — no
one on the stage, at all of a fickle and worthless disposition,
who does not profess himself his companion. And he, trained
in the practice of insult and wickedness, in enduring cold,
and hunger, and thirst, and watching, was called a brave man
by those fellows, while all the appliances of industry and
instruments of virtue were devoted to lust and atrocity.
But if his companions follow him, — ^if the infamous herd
of desperate men depart from the city, 0 happy shall we be,
fortunate will be the republic, ijlaatrious will be the renown
of my consulship. For theirs is no ordinary insolence,— no
common and endurable audacity. They think of nothing
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296 CIOBBO'S ORATIONB.
but slaughter, conflagration, and rapine. They have dism-
Sted their patrimonies, they have squandered their fortunes,
oney has long £uled them, and now credit begins to fidl;
but tiie same desires remain which they had in their time
of abundance. But if in their drinking and gambling
parties they were content with feasts and harlots, they would
be in a hopeless state -indeed; but yet they might be en-
dured. But who can bear this,— that indolent men should
plot against the bravest, — drunkards against the sober, — men
asleep against men awake, — men lying at feasts, embracing
abandoned women, languid with wine, crammed with food,
crowned with chaplets, reeking with ointments, worn out
with lust, belch out in their discourse the murder of all good
men, and the conflagration of the city 1
But I am confident that some &te is hanging over these men ;
and that the punishment long since due to their iniquity, and
worthlessness, and wickedness, and lust, is either visibly at hand
or at least rapidly approaching. And if my consulship shall
have removed, since it cannot cure them, it will have added,
not some brief span, but many ages of existence to the re-
public. For there is no nation for us to fear, — no king who
can make war on the Eoman people. All foreign afi^rs are
tranquillized, both by land and sea, by the valour of one man.
Domestic war alone remains. The only plots against us are
within our own walls, — the danget is wilSiin, — ^the enemy is
within. We must war with luxury, with madness, with
wickednesa For th^ war, 0 citizens, I offer myself as the
general. I take on myself the enmity of profligate men.
What can be ciu^ I will cure, by whatever means it may be
possible. What must be cut away, I wiU not suffer to spread,
to the ruin of the republic. Let them depart, or let them
stay quiet ; or if they remain in the city and in the same
diep^sition as at present, let them expect what they deserve.
VI. But there are men, O Eomans, who say that Catiline
has been driven by me into banishment. But if I could do
so by a word, I would drive out those also who say so. For-
sooth, that timid, that excessively bashful man could not bear
the voice of the consul ; as soon as he was ordered to go into
banishment, he obeyed, he was quiet Yesterday, when I had
been all but murdered at my own house, I convoked the
senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator ; I related the whole
afi&ur to the conscript Mhers; and when Catiline came
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IL AQAINBT L. CATILINE. 297
thither, what senator addressed him ) who saluted him ? who
looked upon him not so much even as an abandoned citizen,
as an implacable enemy ? Nay the chiefe of that body left
that part of the benches to which he came naked and empty.
On this I, that violent consul, who drive citizens into exile
by a word, asked of Catiline whether he had been at the
nocturnal meeting at Marcus Lecca's, or not ; when that most
audacious man, convicted by his own conscience, was at first
silent. I related all the other circumstances ; I described
what he had done that night, where he had been, what he had
arranged for the next night, how the plan of tiie whole war
had been laid down by him. When he hesitate when he
was convicted, I asked why he hesitated to go whither he had
been long preparing to go ; when I knew that arms, that the
axes, the ^oes, and trumpets, and military standards, and
that silver eagle to which he had made a shrine in his own
house, had been sent on, did I drive him into exile who I
knew had already entered upon war ? I suppose Manlius,
that centurion who has pitched his camp in the Fsesulan dis-
trict, has proclaimed war against the Roman people in his
own name ; and that camp is not now waiting for Catiline as
its general, and he, driven forsooth into exile, will go to Mar-
seiUes, as they say, and not to that camp.
VII. 0 the hard lot of those, not only of those who govern,
but even of those who save the republic. Now, if Lucius
Catiline, hemmed in and rendered powerless by my coimsels,
by my toils, by my dangers, should on a sudden become
alarmed, should change his designs, should desert his friends,
should abandon his design of making war, should change his
path from this course of wickedness and war, and betake him-
self to flight and exile, he will not be said to have been
deprived by me of the arma of his audacity, to have been
astounded and terrified by my diligence, to bEive been driven
from his hope and from lus enterprise, but, uncondemned and
innocent, to have been driven into banishment by the consul
by threats and violence; and there will be some who will
seek to have him thought not worthless but unfortunate,
and me considered not a most acAre consul, but a most cruel
tyrant. I am not imwilling, O Bomans, to endure this storm
of false and unjust unpopularity as long as the danger of this
horrible and nefarious war is warded off from you. Let him
be said to be banished by me as long as he goes into banish-
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ment; but, believe me, he will not go. I will never ask of the
immortal gods, O Eomans, for the sake of lightening my own
unpopularity, for you to hear that Lucius Catiline is leading
an army of enemies, and is hovering about in arms ; but yet
in three days you will hear it. And I much more fear that
it will be objected to me some day or other, that I have let
him escape, rather than that I have banished him. But when
tiiere are men who say he has been banished because he has
gone away, what would these men say if he had been put to
death ?
Although those men who keep saying that Catiline is going
to MarseiUes do not complain of this so much as they fear
it ; for there is not one of them so inclined to pity, as not to
prefer that he should go to Manlius rather than to Mar-
seilles. But he, if he had never before planned what he is
now doing, yet would rather be slain while living as a bandit,
than live as an exile ; but now, when nothing has happened
to him contrary to his own widi and design,— -except, indeed,
that he has left Rome while we are alive, — ^let us wish rather
that he may go into exile than complain of it.
VIII. But why are we speaking so long about one enemy;
and about that enemy who now avows that he is one ; and
whbm I now do not fear, because, as I have always wished, a
wall is between us ; and are saying nothing about those who
dissemble, who remain at Rome, who are among us ? Whom,
indeed, if it were by any means possible, I should be anxious
not so much to chastise as to cure, and to make friendly to
the republic ; nor, if they will listen to me, do I quite Imow
why that may not be. For I will tell you, 0 Romans, of
what classes of men those forces are made up, and then, if I
can, I will apply to each the medicine of my advice and
persuasion.
There is one class of them, who, with enormous debts, have
still greater possessions, and who can by no means be de-
tached/ from their affection to them. Of these men the
appearance is most respectable, for they are wealthy, but their
intention and their cause are most shameless. Will you be
rich in lands, in houses, in money, in slaves, in all things, and
yet hesitajbe to diminish your possessions to add to your
credit? What are you expecting? War? What! in the
devastation of all things, do you believe that your own posses-
sions will be held sacr^? do you expect an abolition of debtsi
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11. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 299
They are mistaken who expect that from Catiline. There
may be schedules made out, owing to my exertiongf, but they
will be only catalogues of sale. Nor can those who have
possessions be safe by any other means ; and if they had been
willing to adopt this plan earlier, and not) as is very foolish,
to struggle on against usiuy with the profits of th^ir &rms,
we should have them now richer and better citizens. But I
think these men are the least of all to be dreaded, because
they can either be persuaded to abandon their opinions, or if
they cling to them, they seem to me more likely to form
wishes against the republic than to bear arms against it.
IX. There is another class of them, who, although they are
harassed by debt, yet are expecting supreme power; they
wish to become masters. .They think that when the republic
is in confusion they may gain those honours which they
despair of when it is in tranquillity. And they must, I think,
be told the same as every one else, — ^to despair of obtaining
what they are aiming at ; that in the first plac6, I myself am
watchful for, am present to, am providing for the republic.
Besides that, there is a high spirit in the virtuous citizens,
gi'eat unanimity, great numbers, and also a large body of
troops. Above all that, the immortal gods will stand by and
bring aid to this invincible nation, this most illustrious em-
pire, this most beautiful city, against such wicked violence.
And if they had already got that which they with the greatest
madness wish for, do they think that in the ashes of the city
and blood of the citizens, which in their wicked and infamous
hearts they desire, they will become consuls and dictators and
even kings 1 Do they not see that they are wishing for that
which, if they were to obtain it, must be given up to some
fugitive slave, or to some gladiator ?
There is a third class, already touched by age, but still
vigorous from constant exercise ; of which class is Manlius
himself, whom Catiline is now succeeding. These are men
of those colonies which Sylla established at Fsesulee, which I
know to be composed, on the whole, of excellent citizens and
brave men ; but yet these are colonists, who, from becoming
possessed of imexpected and sudden wealth, boast them-
selves extravagantly and insolently ; these men, while they
build like rich men, while they delight in, farms, in litters,
in vast families of slaves, in luxurious bsmquets, have in-
curred such great debts, that, if they would >e saved, they
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300 OIOBEO'S ORATIONS.
must raise Sylla from the dead ; and they have even excited
some countrymen, poor and needy men, to entertain the same
hopes of plimder as themselves. And all these men, O
Bomans, I place in the same class of robbers and banditti
But, I warn them, let them cease to be mad, and to think of
proscriptions and dictatorships; for such a horror of these
times is ingrained into the city, that not even men, but it
seems to me that even the very cattle would refuse to bear
them again.
X. There is a fourth class, various, promiscuous and turbu-
lent ; who indeed are now overwhelmed ; who will never recover
themselves; who, partly from indolence, partly from managing
their afiTairs badly, partly from extravagance^ ai-e embarrassed
by old debts ; and worn out with bail bonds, and judgfnents,
and seizures of their goods, ^re said to be betaking themselves
in numbers to that camp both from the city and the country.
These men I think not so much active soldiers as lazy insol-
vents ; who, if they cannot stand at first, may fall, but fall so,
that not only the city but even their nearest neighbours know
nothing of it For I do not understand why, if they cannot
live with honour, they should wish to die shamefully; or why
they think they shall perish with less pain in a crowd, than ii
they perish by themselves.
There is a fifth class, of parricides, assassins, in short of all
infamous characters, whom I do not wish to recal from Cati-
line, and indeed they cannot be separated from him. Let
them perish in their wicked war, since they are so numerous
that a prison cannot contain them.
There is a last class, last not only in number but in the
sort of men and in their way of life ; the especial body-guard
of Catiline, of his levying ; ay, the fiiends of his embraces and
of his bosom ; whom you see with carefully combed hair,
glossy, beardless, or with well-trimmed beards ; with tunics
with deeves, or reaching to the ancles ; clothed with veils, not
with robes ; all the industry of whose life, all the labour of
whose watchfulness, is expended in suppers lasting till day-
break.
In these bands are all the gamblers, all the adulterers, all
the unclean and shameless citizens. These boys, so witty and
delicate, have learnt not only to love and to be loved, not
only to sing and to dance, but also to brandish daggers and to
administer poisons ; and imless they are driven out, unless
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n. AGAINST L. OATILINE. 301
they die, even should Catiline die, I warn you that the school
of Catiline would exist in the republic. But what do those
wretches want ? Are they going to take their wives with
them to the camp 1 Hpw can fiiey do without them, espe-
cially in these nights) and how will they endure the Apen-
nines, and these frosts, and this snow? unless they think that
they will bear the winter more easily because they have been
in the habit of dancing naked at their feasta 0 war much
to be dreaded, when Catiline is going to have his body-guard
of prostitutes I
XL Array now, 0 Romans, against these splendid troops
of Catiline, your guards and your armies ; and first of all
oppose to that worn-out and wounded gladiator your consuls
and generals ; then against that banished and enfeebled troop
of ruined men lead out the flower and strength of all Italy :
instantly the cities of the colonies and municipalities will
match ike rustic mounds of Catiline ; and I will not con-
descend to compare the rest of your troops and equipments
and guards with the want and destitution of that highway-
man. But if, omitting all these things in which we are rich
and of which he is destitute,— the senate, the Boman knights,
the people, the city, the treasury, the revenues, all Italy, all
the provinces, foreign nations, — if, I say, omitting all these
things, we choose to compare the causes themselves which are
opposed to one another, we may understand from that alone
how thoroughly prostrate they are. For on the one side are
fighting modesty, on the other wantonness; on the one chastity,
on the other uncleanness ; on the one honesty, on the other
fraud ; on the one piety, on the other wickedness ; on the one
consistency, on the other insanity ; on the one honour, on the
other baseness ; on the one continence, on the other lust ; in
short, equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, all the virtues
contend against iniquity with luxury, against indolence, against
rashness, against all the vices; lastly, abundance contends
against destitution, good plans against baffled designs, wisdom
against madness, well-founded hope against universal despair.
In a contest and war of this sort, even if the zeal of men
were to jGeuI, will not the immortal gods compel such numcr
rous and excessive vices to be defeated by these most eminent
virtues ?
XII. And as this is the case, 0 Romans, do ye, as I have
said before, defend your house with guards and vigilance.
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302 OIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
I have taken care and made arrangements that there shall be
sufl&cient protection for the city without distressing you and
without any tumult All the colonists and citizens of your
municipal towns, being informed by me of this nocturnal
sally of Catiline, will easily defend their cities and territories ;
the gladiators which he thought would be his most numerous
and most trusty band, although they are better disposed than
part of the patricians, will be held in check by our power.
Quintus Metellus, whom I, making provision for this, sent on
to the Gallic and Picenian territory, will either overwhelm
the man, or will prevent all his motions and attempts ; but
with respect to the arrangement of all other matters, and
maturing and acting on our plans, we shall consult the senate,
which, as you are aware, is convened.
Now once more I wish those who have remained in the
city, and who, contrary to the safety of the city and of all of
you, have been left in the city by Catiline, although they are
enemies, yet because they were bom citizens, to be warned
again and again by me. If my lenity has appeared to any
one too remiss, it has been only waiting that that might break
out which was lying hid. As to the future, I cannot now
forget that this is my country, that I am the consul of these
citizens ; that I must either live with them, or die for them.
There is no guard at the gate, no one plotting against their
path; if any one wishes to go, he can provide for himself; but
if any one stirs in the city, and if I detect not only any action,
but any attempt or design against the coimtry, he shall feel
that there are in this city vigilant consuls, eminent magis-
trates, a brave senate, arms, and prisons; which oiu* ancestors
appointed as the avengers of neferious and convicted crimes.
XIII. And all this shall be so done, 0 Eomans, that affairs
of the greatest importance shall be transacted with the least
possible disturbance ; the greatest dangers shall be avoided
without any tumult ; an internal civil war the most cruel and
terrrible in the memory of man, shall be put an end to by
me alone in the robe of peace acting as general and com-
mander-in-chief. And this I will so arrange, 0 Eomans, that
if it can be by any means managed, even the most worthless
man shall not suffer the punisligaent of his crimes in this
city. But if the violence of open audacity, if danger impend-
ing oyer the republic drives me of necessity from t£is merciful
disposition, at all events I will manage this^ which seems
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ni. AGAINST L. OATILINB. 303
scarcely even to be hoped for in so great and so treacherous a
war, that no good man shall fall, and that you may all be
saved by the punishment of a few.
And I promise ypu this, 0 Romans, relying neither on my
own prudence, nor on human counsels, but on many and
manifest intimations of the will of the immortal gods ; under
whose guidance I first entertained this hope and this opinion;
who are now defending their temples and the houses of the
city, not afar ofij as they were used to, from a foreign and
distant enemy, but here on the spot, by their own divinity
and present help. And you, 0 Romans, ought to pray to and
implore them to defend from the nefexious wickedness of
abandoned citizens, now that all the forces of all enemies are
defeated by land and sea, this city which they have ordained
to be the most beautiful and flourishing of all cities.
/
/
IRD ORATION OP M. T. CICERO AGAINST LUCIUS
CATILINA.
ADDSBSSED TO THB PBOPLB.
THB ABOUMBNT.
le Cicero was addressing the preceding speech to the people, a
debate was going on in the senate of which we have no account.
In the meanwhile Catiline, after staying a few days on the road to
raise the country as he passed along, where his agents had been pre-
viously busy among the people, proceeded to Manlius's camp with the
fasces and all the ensigns of military command displayed before him.
Upon this news the senate immediately declared him and Manlius
public enpmies ; they offered pardon to all bis followers who should
return to their duty by a certain day ; and ordered the consuls to
make new levies, and ^at Antonios should follow Catiline with his
army, and Cicero remain behind to protect the city.
In the meantime Lentulus, and- the other conspirators who remained
behind, were proceeding with their designs. And among other steps,
they decided on endeavouring to tamper with some ambassadors from
the AUobroges,^ who were at that moment within the city, as the
AUobroges were supposed not to be very well affected to the Roman
power. At first these ambassadors appear to have willingly given
^ The AUobroges occupied the districts of Dauphin^ and Savoy.
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304 Cicero's orations.
«ar to their propoaalB ; bat after a while they began to consider the
difficulty of the bosinees proposed to them, and the danger which
would ensue to their state if it &iled after they had become impli-
cated in it ; and accordingly they revealed the business to Quintus
Fabius Sanga, the patron of their city, who communicated it to Cicero.
Cicero desired the ambassadors to continue to listen to the proposals
of the conspirators, till they had become fully acquainted with the
extent of the plot, and till they were able to fiunish him with fiill
evidence against the actors in it ; and by his suggestion they required
the conspirators to furnish them with credentials to show to their
countrymen. This was thought reasonable by Lentulus and his party,
and they accordingly appointed a man named Yulturcius to accom-
pany them, who was to introduce them to Catiline on their road, in
order to confirm the agreement, and to exchange pledges with him,
and Lentulus also furnished them with a letter to Catiline under his
own hand and seal, though not signed^ Cicero being privately
informed of all these particulars, concerted '^^ the amb^sadors the
time and manner of their leaving Rome by^ght, and had them
arrested on the Mulvian bridge, about a mile^fcm the city, with
these letters and papers in their possession. Thi?V«8 ^^ done, and
they brought as prisoners to Cicero's house early in ttP morning.
Cicero immediately summoned the senate ; and at the^°^® *""^® ^®
sent for Lentulus, Cethegus, and others of the conspirat5"fs who were
more especially implicated, such as Gabinius and Statilii!«» ^^^ ^
«Hme immediately to his house, being ignorant of the discos"" ''"'
had taken plwe. Being informed also that a quantity of a
been pjroyid^ by Cethegus for the purpose of the conspir^'J* —
orders Caius Sulpicius, one of the praetors, to search his honMi *^^
he did so, and found a great number of swords and d&ggera rfcadj
cleaned and fit for use. • ^^ ^
He then proceeds t^ meet the senate in the Temple of Concord, wM^
the ambassadors and conspirators in custody. He relates the wh.
aflair to them, and introduces Vulturcius to be examined before the
Cicero, by the order of the senate, promises him pardon and rewaro-
If he reveals what he knew. On which he confesses everything : telU
them that he had letters firom Lentulus to CatUine to urge him to "
avail himself of the assistance of the slaves, and to lead his army wi A
all expe.itaon against Rome ; in order, when the city had been set on
L"' d^sts^thoTx flr^""'' *'^^ '^ "^^^*^* ^ ^^^^ ^ -^-^p*
Then the ambassadors were examined, who declared that they had '
received letters to the chief men of their nation from Lentulus, Cethe-
gus, aiid Statilms ; and that they, and Lucius Cassius also, begged
^Z f^^ X body of cavalry into Italy, and that LentuluJ ass^
them, from the Sibylline books, that he was the third* ComeUuB
who was destined to reign at Rome. The letters were produced and
?^"f?*i.^^5? ^'^^ ^^ **'.®? *^® conspirators respectively acknow
ISlfli i".'"? ^^^^^'^^^^ LentuluswasevensociLiiencLtrickai
tnat he confessed his whole crime.
The senate passed a vote acknowledging the serviceB of Cicero in tlie
« Cinna and SyUa had been the two fonner Comelii.
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m. AGAINST L. OATILINB. . 305
most ample terms, and voted that Lentulus shoald be deposed from
his office of pnetor, and, with all the other conspirators, committed
to safe costody. Cicero, after the senate acyoumed, proceeded to the
forum and ^ye an account to the people of eyerything which had
passed, both in regard to the steps that he had taken to detect the
whole conspiracy, and to convict the conspirators ; and aJso of what
had taken place in the senate, and of the votes and resolutions which
that body had just passed.
While the prisoners were before the senate he had copies of th^r exami-
nations and confessions taken down, and dispersed through Italy and
all the provinces. This happened on the third of December.
I. You see this day, O Romans, the republic, and all your
lives, your goods, your fortunes, your wives and children, this
home of most illustrious empire, this most fortunate and
beautiful city, by the great love of the immortal gods for
you, by my kbours and counsels and dangers, snatphed fronv
fire and sword, and almost from the very jaws of fate, and
preserved and restored to you.
And if those days on which we are preserved are not less
pleasant to us, or less illustrious, than those on which we are
bom, because the joy of being saved is certain, the good for-
tune of being bom uncertain, and because we are bom with-
-out feeling it, but we are preserved with great delight ; ay,
since we have, by our affection and by our good report, raised
to the immortal gods that Romulus who built this city, he,
too, who has preserved this city, built by him, and embellished
as you see it, ought to be held in honour by you and your
posterity; for we have extinguished flames wluch were almost
laid under and placed around the temples and shrines, and^
houses and walls of the whole city ; we have turned the edge
of swords drawn against the republic, and have turned aside
their points from your throats. And since all this has been
displayed in the senate, and made manifest, and detected by
me, I will now explain it briefly, that you, O citizens, that are
as yet ignorant of it, and are in E(uspense, may be able to see
how great the danger was, how evident and by what means it
was detected and arrested. First of all, since Catiline, a few^
days ago, burst out of the city, when he had left behhid the-
companions of his wickedness, the active leaders of this in-
fiEunous war, I have continually watched and taken care, 0
Romans, of the means by which we might be safe amid such
great and such carefully concealed treachery.
II. Further, when I drove Catiline out of the city, (for I
do not fear the unpopularity of this expression, when that is
VOL. U. X
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306 OIOEBO'S 0BATI0N8.
more to be feared that I should be blamed because he has de-
parted alive,) but then when I wished him to be removed, I
thought either that the rest of the band of conspirators would
depart with him, or that liiey who remained would be weak
and powerless without him.
And I, as I saw that those whom I knew to be inflamed
with the greatest madness and wickedness were among xia,
and had remained at Rome, spent all my nights and days in
taking care to know and see what they were doing, and what
they were contriving; that, since what I said would, from the
incredible enormity of the wickedness, make less impression
on your ears, I might so detect the whole business that you
might with all your hearts provide for your safety, when you
saw the crime with your own eyes. Therefore, when I foimd
that the ambassadors of the Allobroges had been tampered
with by Publius Lentulus, for the sake of exciting a Transal-
pine war and commotion in Gaul, and that they, on their
return to Gaul, had been sent with letters and messages to
Catiline on the same road, and that Yulturcius had been added
to them s(B a companion, and that he too had had letters given
him for Catiline, I thought that an opportunity was given me
of contriving what was most difficult, and which I was always
wishing the immortal gods might grant, that the whole busi-
ness might DC manifestly detected not by me alone, but by
the senate also, and by you.
Therefore, yesterday I summoned Lucius Flaccus and C.
Pomtinus, the prsetors, brave men and well-afFected to the
republic. I explained to them the whole matter, and showed
them what I wished to have done. But they, full of noble
and worthy sentiments towards the republic, without hesita-
tion, and without any delay, imdertook the business, and
when it was evening, went secretly to the Mulvian bridge,
and there so distributed themselves in the nearest villas, that
the Tiber and the bridge was between them. And they took
to the same place, without any one having the least suspicion
of it, many brave men, and I had sent many picked young
men of the prefecture of Rea^, whose assistance I constantly
employ in the protection of the republic, armed with swords.
In the meantime, about the end of the third watch, when the
ambassadors of tiie Allobroges, with a great retinue and Yul-
turcius with them, began to come upon the Mulvian bridge,
an attack is made upon them; swords are drawn both by
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ni. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 307
them and by our people ; the matter was understood by the
prsBtors alone, but waa unknown to the rest
III. Then, by the intervention of Pomtinus and Flaccus,
the fight which had begun was put an end to ; all the letters
which were in the hands of the whole company are delivered
to the praetors with the seals unbroken ; the men themselves
are arrested and brought to me at daybreak. And I imme-
diately summoned that most worthless contriver of all this
wickedness, Gabinius, as yet suspecting nothing; after him,
P. Statilius is sent for, and after him Cethegus ; but Lentulus
was a long time in coming, — I suppose, because, contrary to
his custom, he had been up a long time the night before,
writing letters.
But when those most noble and excelleivt men of the whole
city, who, hearing of the matter, came in crowds to me in the
morning, thought it best for me to open the letters before I
related the matter to the senate, lest, if nothing were found
in them, so great a disturbance might seem to have been
caused to the state for nothing, I said I would never so act as
shrink firom referring matter of public danger to the public
council. In truth if, 0 Romans, these things which had been
reported to me had not been found in thetn, yet I did not
think I ought, in such a crisis of the republic, to be afraid
of the imputation of over- diligence. I quickly summoned a
full senate, as you saw; and meantime, without any delay, by
the advice of the Allobroges, I sent Caius Sulpicius the prsetor,
a brave man, to bring whatever arms he could find in the
house of Cethegus, wHience he did bring a great number of
swords and daggers.
IV. I introduced Vultm-cius without the Gauls. By the
command of the senate, I pledged him the public faith for
his safety. I exhorted him fearlessly to tell all he knew.
THen, when he had scarcely recovered himself from his great
alarm, he said ; that he had messages and letters for Catiline,
from Publius Lentulus, to avail himself of the guard of the
slaved, and to come towards the city with his army as quickly
aaipossible; and that was to be done with the intention that,
when they had set fire to the city on all sides, as it had been
arranged and distributed^ and had. made a great massacre of
the citizens, he might be at hand to catch those who fled, and
to join himself to the leaders within the city. But the Gaula
being introduced, said that an oath had been administered to
x2
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308 Cicero's orations.
them, and letters given them by Publins Lentulus, Cethegucf,
and Statilins, for their nation ; and that they had been en-
joined by them, and by Lucius Cassius, to send cavaky into
Italy as early as posdble ; that in&ntry should not be want-
ing; and that Lentulus had assured him, from the Sibylline
oracles and the answers of soothsayers, that he was that third
Cornelius to whom the kingdom and sovereignty over this
city was feted to come; that Cinna and Sylla had been before
him ; and that he had also said that was the year destined to
the destruction of this city and empire, being the tenth year
after the acquittal of the virgins, and the twentieth after the
burning of the Capitol. But they said there had been this
dispute between Cethegus and the rest, — ^that Lentulus *and
others thought it best that the massacre should take place
and the city be burnt at the Saturnalia, but that Cethegus
thought it too long to wait.
V. And, not to detain you, 0 Romans, we ordered the
letters to be brought forward which were said to have been
given them by each of the men. First, I showed his seal to
Cethegus ; he recognised it : we cut the thread ; we read the
letter. It was written with his own hand : that he would do
for the senate and people of the Allobroges what he had pro-
mised their ambas^ors; and that he begged them also to do .
what their ambassadors had arranged. Then Cethegus, who
a little before had made answer about the swords and daggers
which had been foimd in his house, and had said that he had <
always been fond of fine arms, being stricken down and de-
jected at the reading of his letters, convicted by his own con-
science, became suddenly silent Statilius, being introduced,
owned his handwriting and his seal. His letters were read, of
nearly the same tenor : he confessed it. Then I showed Len-
tulus his letters, and asked him whether he recognised the
seal ? He nodded assent. But it is, said I, a well-known
seal ; — the likeness of your grandfether, a most illustrious
man, who greatly loved his coimtry and his fellow-citizens ;
and it, even though silent, ought to have called you back
from such wickedness.
Letters are read of the same tenor to the senate and people
of the Allobroges. I offered him leave, if he wished to say any-
thing of these matters : and at first he declined to speak; but
a little afterwards, when the whole examination had been gone
through and concluded, he rose. He asked the Gauls what he
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m. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 309
had had to du with them ? why they had come to his house )
and he asked Yultm-cius too. And when they had answered
him briefly and steadily, imder whose guidance they had come
to him, and how often; and when they asked him whether he
had said nothing to them about the Sibylline oracles ; then
he on a sudden, mad with ^ckedness, showed how great was
the power of conscience; for though he might have denied it,
he suddenly, contrary to every one's expectation, confessed
it : so not only did his genius and skill in oratory, for which
he was always eminent, but even, through the power of his
manifest and detected wickedness, that impudence, in which
he surpassed all men, and audacity deserted him.
But Vulturcius on a sudden ordered the letters to be pro-
duced and opened which he said had been given to him for
Catiline, by Lentulus. And though Lentulus waa greatly
agitated at that, yet he acknowledged his seal and his hand-
writing; but the letter was anonymous, and ran thus : — " Who
I am you will know from him whom I have sent to you :
take care to behave like a man, and consider to what place
you have proceeded, and provide for what is now necessary
for you: take care to associate to yourself the assistance of
every one, even of the powerless." Then Gabinius being
introduced, when at first he had begun to answer impudently,
at last denied nothing of those things which the Gauls allied
against him. And to me, indeed, 0 Bomans, though the
letters, the seals, the handwriting, and the confession of each
individual seemed most certain indications and proo& of
wickedness, yet their colour, their eyes, their coimtenance,
their silence, appeared mofe certain stiU ; for they stood so
stupified, they kept their eyes so fixed on the ground, at times
looking stealthily at one another; that they appeared now not
so much to be informed against by others as to be informing
against themselves.
VI. Having produced and divulged these proofe, O Romans,
I consulted the senate what ought to be done for the interests
of the republic. Vigorous and fearless opinions were delivered
by the chief men, which the senate adopted without any
variety ; and since the decree of the senate is not yet written
out, I will relate to you from memory, O citizens, what the
senate has decreed. /^First of all, a vote of thanks to me is
passed in the most honourable words, because the republic
has been delivered from the greatest dangers by my valour
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310 CI0EBO*S ORATIONS.
and wisdom, and prudence. Then Ludns Flaccus and Cains
Pomtinus, the prcetors, are deservedly and rightly praised,
because I had availed myself of their brave and loyal assist-
ance. And also, praise is given to that brave man, my col-
league, because he had removed from his counsels, and from
the counsels of the republic, those who had been accomplices
in this conspiracy. And they voted that Publius Lentulus^
.when he had abdicated the prsetorship, should be given into_
custody; and also, that Caius Cethegus, Lucius Statilius,
Publius Gabinius, who were all present, should be given into
custody : and the same decree was passed against Lucius
Cassius, who had begged for himself the office of burning the
city ; against Marcus Caparius, to whom it had been proved
that Apulia had been allotted for the purpose of exciting dis-
aflFection among the shepherds ; against Publius Furius, who
belongs to the colonies which Lucius Sylla led to Faesul® ;
against Quintus Manlius Chilo, who was always associated^
with this man Furius in his tampering with the AUobroges ;
against Publius Umbrenus, a freedman, by whom it was proved
that the Gauls were originally brought to Gabinius.
And the senate, 0 citizens, acted with such lenity, that,
out of so great a conspiracy, and ;5uch a number and midti-
tude of domestic enemies, it thought that since the republic
was saved, the minds of the rest might be restored to a
healthy state by the punishment of nine most abandoned
men. And also a supplication^ was decreed in my name,
(which is the first time since the building of the city that
such an honour has ever been paid to a man in a civil capar
city,) to the immortal gods, for their singular kindness. Ajid
,it was decreed in these words, "because I had delivered the
city frbm conflagration, the citizens from massacre, and Italy
from war." And if this supplication be compared with others
O citizens, there is this diflference between them, — that all
others have been appointed because of the successes of the
^ A supplication was a solemn thanksgiving to the gods, decreed by
the senate, when all the temples were opened and the statues of the
gods placed in public upon couches (ptUvinaria), to which the people
offered up their thanksgiyings and prayers. It was usually decreed on
the intelligence arriving of any great victory, and the number of days
which it was to last was proportioned to the importance of the victory.
It was generally regarded as a prelude to a triumph. Of course, from
what has been said, it must have been usually confined to generals ; who
laid aside the toga on leaving the city to assume the command of tiie
army, and assumed the pcUudamentum, or military robe.
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III. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 311
republic ; this one alone for iha preservation. And that which
was the first thing to be done, has been done and executed;
for Publius Lentulus, though, being convicted by proofe and
by his own confession, by the judgment of the senate he had
lost not only the rights of a praetor, but also those of a citizen^
still resigned his o£&ce ; so that, though Gains Marcius, that
most illustrious of men, had no scruples about- putting to
death Cains Glaucius the prsetor, against whom nothing had
been decreed by name, still we are relieved from that scruple in
the case of Publius Lentulus, who is now a private individual
VII. Now, since, 0 citizens, you have the nefarious
leaders of tMs most wicked and dangerous war taken pri-
soners and in your grasp, you ought to think that all the
resources of Catiline, — all his hopes and all his power, now
that these dangers of the city are warded off, have fallen to
pieces. And, indeed, when I dtove him from the city, I fore-
saw in my mind, 0 citizens, that if Catiline were removed,
I had no cause to fear either the drowsiness of Publius Len-
tulus, or the fiit of Lucius Cassius, or the mad rashness of
Cassius Cethegus. He alone was to be feared of all these
men, and that, only as long as he was within the walls of the
city. He knew everything, he had access to everybody. He had
the skill and the audacity to address, to tempt, and to tamper
with every one. He had acuteness suited to crime ; and
neither tongue nor hand ever foiled to support that acuteness.
Already he had men he could rely on, chosen and distributed -
for the execution of all other business; and when he had
ordered anythiog to be done, he did not think it was done on
that account. There was nothing to which he did not per-
sonally attend and see to, — for which he did not watch and
toil. He was able to endure cold, thirst, and himger.
Unless I had driven this man, so active, so ready, so
audacious, so crafty, so vigilant in wickedness, so industrious
in ciiminal exploits, from his plots within the city to the open
warfare of the camp, (I will express my honest opinion,
O citizens,) I should not easily have removed from your
necks so vast a weight of evil. He would not have deter-
mined on the Saturnalia * to massacre you, — he woidd not
^ The Saturnalia was a feast of Saturn at which extraordinary licence
and indulgence was allowed to all the slaves; it took place at the end
of December, while this speech of Cicero was delivered early in
November.
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312 . , cicbbo'b orations.
have amiotinced the destruction of the republic, and eyen the
day of its doom so long beforehand,— he would never have
allowed his seal and his letters, the undeniable witnesses of
his guilt, to be taken, which now, since he is absent, has been
so done that no larceny in a private house has ever been so
thoroughly and clearly detected as this vast conspiracy against
the republic. But tf Catiline had remained in the city to
this day, although, as long as he was so, I met all his designs
and withstood them ; yet, to say the least, we should have
had to fight with him, and should never, while he remained
as an enemy in the^ty, have delivered the republic from such
dangers, with such ease, such tranquillity, and such silence.
VIII. Although aU these things, 0 Romans, have been so
managed by me, that they appear to J&ave been done and
provided for by the order and design -df the immortal gods ;
and as we may conjecture this because the direction of such
weighty aflfeirs scarcely appears capable of having been carried
out by human wisdom ; so, too, they have at this time so
brought us present aid and assistance, that we could almost
behold them without eyes. For to say nothing of those things,
namely, the firebrands seen in the west in the night time, and
the heat of the atmosphere, — to pass over the falling of
thunderbolts and the esuihquakes, — to say nothing of all the
other portents which have taken place in such numbers
dming my consulship, that the immortal gods themselves
have been seeming to predict what is now taking place ; yet,
at all events, this which I am about to mention, 0 Romans,
must be neither passed over nor omitted.
For you recoUect, I suppose, when Cotta and Torquatus
were consuls, that many towers in the Capitol were struck
with lightning, when both the images of the immortal gods
were moved, and the statues of many ancient men were
thrown down, and the brazen tablets on which the laws ^re.
written were melted. Even Romulus, who built this city, was
struck, which, you recollect, stood in the Capitol, a gilt statue,
little and sucking, and clinging to the teats of l^e wolf. And
when at this time the soothsayers were assembled out of all
Etruria, they said that slaughter, and conflagration, and the
overthrow of the laws, and civil and domestic war, and the fell
of the whole city and empire was at hand, imless die immortal
gods, being appeased in every possible manner, by their own
power turned aside, as I may say, the very fates themselves.
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lU. AGAINST L. CATILINE. 313
Therefore, according to their answers, games were cele-
brated for ten days, nor was anything omitted which might
tend to the appeasing of the gods. And they enjoined also
that we should make a greater statue of Jupiter, and place it
in a lofty situation, and (contrary to what had been done
before) turn it towards the east. And they said that thejr
hoped that if that statue which you now behold looked upon
the rising of the sun, and the forum, and the senate-house,
then those designs which were secretly formed against the
safety of the city and empire would be brought to light, so
as to be able to be thoroughly seen by the senate and by
the Roman people. And the consuls ordered it to be so
placed; butfso great was the delay in "the work, that it was
never set up by the former consuls, nor by us before this
day.
IX. Here who, 0 Romans, can there be so obstinate against
the truth, so iieadstrong, so void of sense, as to deny that all
these things which we see, and especially this city, is governed
by the divine authority and power of the immortal gods?
Forsooth, when this answer had been given, — ^that massacre,
and conflagration, and ruin was prepared for the republic;
and that, too, by profligate citizens, which, from the enormity
of the wickedness, appeared increcjible to some people, you
found that it had not only been planned by wicked citizens,
but had even been undertaken and commenced. And is not
this &ct so present that it appears to have taken place by the
express will of the good and mighty Jupiter, that, when this
day, early in the morning, both the conspirators and their
accusers were being led by my command through the forum
to the Temple of Concord, at that very time the statue was
being erected? And wheil it was set up, and turned towards
you and towards the senate, the senate and you yourselves
Miw everything which had been planned against the universal
safety brought to light and made manifest.
And on this accoimt they deserve even greater hatred and
greater punishment, for having attempted to apply their fatal
and wicked fire, not only to your houses and homes, but even
to the shrines and temples of the Gods. And if I were to
say that it was I who resisted,them, I should take too much
to myself, and ought not to be borne. He — ^he, Ji^piter, re-
sisted them. He determined that the Capitol should be safe,
he saved these temples, he saved this city, he saved all of you.
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314 CICEBO'S OBATIONS.
It is under the guidance of the immortal gods, 0 Bomanef,
that I have cherished the intention and desii'es which I have,
and have arrived at such imdeniable proofs. Surely, that
tampering with the Allobroges would never have taken place,
BO important a matter would never have been so madly
entrusted, by Lentulus and the rest of our internal enemies,
to strangers and foreigners, such letters would never have
been written, unless all prudence had been taken by the im-
mortal gods from such terrible audacity. What shall I say?
That Gauls, men from a state scarcely at peace with us, the
only nation existing which seems both to be able to make war
on the Roman people, an^d not to be unwilling to do so,-t-
that they should disregard the hope of empii^ and of the
greatest success volimtarily offered to them by j^tricians, and
Sbould prefer your safety to their own power— do you not
think that that was caused by divine interposition ? especially
when they could have destroyed us, not by fighting, but by
keeping silence.
X. Wherefore, 0 citizens, since a supplication has been
decreed at all the altars, celebrate those days with your wives
and children ; for many just and deserved hono:trs have been
often paid to the immortal gods, but juster ones never. For
you have been snatched from a most cruel and miserable
destruction, and you have been snatched from it without
slaughter, without bloodshed, without an army, without a
battle. You have conquered in the garb of peace, with me
in the garb of peace for your only general and commander.
Remember, 0 citizens, all civfl dissensions, and not only
those which you have heard o^ but these also which you
yourselves remember and have seen. Lucius Sylla crushed
Publius Sulpicius ; * he drove from the city Caius Marius the
guardian of this city ; and of many other brave men some he
drove from the city, and some he murdered. Cneeus Octaviua^
the consul drove his colleague by force of arms oat of the
city ; all this place was crowded with heaps of carcases and
^ Sulpicius procured a law to be passed for taking the command
against Mithriaates from' Sylla and giving it to Marius; Sylla came to
£>me with his army and slew Sulpicius, when Marius fled to Africa.
Sylla made Octavius and Cinna consuls, who quarrelled afj^r he was
gone, and Cinna went over to the party of Marius, who returned to
Bome. Lepidus and .Catulns were consuls the year after the death of
Sylla, and they quarrelled because Lepidus wished to rescind all the acts
of Sylla. Lepidus was defeated, fled to Sardinia, and died there.
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UL AQAIK8T L. CATILINE. 315
flowed with the blood of citizens; affcerwai'ds Ginna and
Marius got the upper hand ; and then most illustrious men
were put to death, and the lights of the state were extin-
guished. Afterwards Sylla avenged the cruelty of this victory;
it is needless to say with what a diminution of the citizens,
and with what disasters to the republic. Marcus Lepidus
disagreed with that most eminent and brave man Quintus
Catulus. His death did not cause as much grief to the
republic as that of the others.
And these dissensions, 0 Bomans^ were such as concerned
not the destruction of the republic, but only a change in the
constitution. They did not wish that there should be no
republic, but that ^ey themselves should be the chief men in
thiat which existed ; nor did they desire that the city should
be burnt, bUt that they themselves should flourish in it. And
yet*all those dissensions, none of which aimed at the destruc-
tion of 'the republic, were such that *they were to be termi-
nated not by a reconciliation and concord, but only by inter-
necine war among the citizens. But in this war alone, the
greatest and most cruel in the memory of man, — a war such
as even the countries of the barbarians have never waged with
their own tribes, — a war in which this law was laid down by
Lentulus, and Catiline, and. Cassius, and Cethegus, that every
one, who could live in safety as long as the city remained in
safety, should be considered as an enemy, — ^in tiiis war I have
BO managed matters, 0 Romans, that jou should all be pre-
served in safety ; and though your enemies had thought that
only such a number of the citizens would be left as had held
out against an interminable massacre, and only so much of
the city as the flames could not devouif I have preserved both
the city and, the citizens imhurt and undiminished.
XI. And for these exploits^ important as they are, 0
Romans, I ask from you no reward of virtue, no badge of
honour, no monument of my glory, beyond the everlasting
recollection of this day. In your minds I wish all my
triumphs, all my decorations of honour, the monuments of
my gloijj the badges of my renown, to be stored and laid up.
Nothing voiceless can delight me, nothing silent, — ^nothing, in
short, such as even those who are less worthy can obtain. In
your memory, 0 Romans, my name shall be cherished, in
your discourses it shall grow, in the monuments of your
Jietters it shall grow old and strengthen ; and I feel assured
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316 ' dCEBO'B ORATIONB.
that the same day which I hope will be for everlastings will be
remembered for ever, so as to tend both to the safety of the
city and the recollection of my consulship^ and that it will
be remembered that there eidsted in thlsx^ityat the same
time two citizens, one of whom limited the boimdaries of
yonr empire only by the regions of heaven, not by those of
the earth, while the other preserved the abode and home
of that ssone empire.
XII. But siqce the fortune and condition of those exploits
which I have performed is not the same with that of those
^men who have directed foreign wars — ^because I must live
among those whom I have defeated and subdued, they have
left their enemies either slain or crushed, — ^it is your business^
0 Romans, to take care, if their good deeds are a benefit to
others, tl^t mine shall never be an injury to me. For*tha^
the wicked and profligate designs of audacious men shall not
be able to injure you, I have taken care; it is your business to
take care that they do not injure me. Although, 0 Romans,
no injury can be done to me by them, — for there is a great
protection in the affection of all-good jnen, which is procmred .
for meTor~ever ; there is great (%nity in the repubUc, which
will always silently defend me ; there is great power in con-
science, and those who neglect it, when they desire to attack
me will destroy themselves.
There is moreover that disposition in me, 0 Romans, that
1 not only will yield to the audacity of no one, but that I
always voluntarily attack the worthless. And if all the
violence of domestic enemies being warded off from you turns
itself upon me alone, you wiU have to take care, 0 Romany
in what condition yo% wish those men to be for the future,
who for your safety have exposed themselves to ^unpopularity
and to aU sorts of dangers. As for me, myself Vhiat is there
which now can be gained by me for the enjoyment of life,
especially when neither in credit among you, nor in the glory
of virtue, do I see any higher point to which I can be desirous
to climb 1
That indeed I will take careo^ 0 Romans, as a private man
to uphold and embellish the exploits which I have performed*
in my consulship : so that, if there has been any unpopu-
liGtrity incurred in preserving the republic, it may injure those
who envy me, and may tend to my glory. Lastly, I wiU so
oehave myself in the republic as always to remember what I
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IV. AOADTOT L. CATILINE. 317
haye done^ and to take care that they shall appear to have
been done through virtue, and not by chance. Do you, 0
Komans, since it is now night, wor^p that Jupiter, the
guardian of this city and of yourselves, and depart to your
homes ; and defend those homes, though the danger is now
removed, with guard and watch as you did last night. That
y<2U shall not have to do so long, and that you shall enjoy,
perpetual tranquillity, shall, 0 Eomans, be my care.
THE FOURTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST LUCIUS
CATILINA.
DEUVIKXD IN THE SENATE.
THE ABGXTMENT.
The night after the events mentioned in the argament to the preceding
oration, Cicero's wife Terentia, with the vestal virgins, was perform-
ing at home the mystic rites of the Bona Dea, while Cicero was
deliberating with his Mends on the best mode of punishing the con-
spirators. Terentia interrupted their deliberations by coming in to
infbrm them of a prodigy which had just happened; that after the
sacrifice in which she had been eng^ed was over, the fire reviyed
spontaneously ; on which the vestal virgins had sent her to him, to
inform him of it, and to bid him pursue what he was then thinking
of and intending for the good of his country, since the goddess had
given this sign that she was watching over his safety and glory.
The next day the senate ordered public rewards to the ambaiwadors and
to Yulturcins ; imd showed signs of intending to proceed with extreme
rigour a^nst tiiie conspirators ; when, on a sudden, rumours arose df
plots having been formed by the slaves of Lentulus and Cethegus for
their masters' rescue ; which obliged Cicero to double all the guards*
and determined him to prevent any repetition of such attempts by
bringing before the senate without delay the question of the punish-
ment of the prisoners. On which account he summoned the senate
to meet the next morning.
There were many difficulties in the matter. Capital punishments were
unusual and very unpopular at Rome. And there was an old law of
Porcius Lecca, a tribune of the people, which granted to all criminals
who were capitally condemned an appeal to the people ; and also a
law had been passed, since his time, by Caius Gracchus, to prohibit
the taking away the life of any citizen without a formal heanng
before the people. And these considerations had so much weight
with some of the senators, that they absented themselves from tb6
senate during this debate, in order to have no share in sentencing
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318 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
prisoners of socb high rank to death. The debate was opened 1^
SilanuB, the consul elect, who declared his opinion, that those in
custody, and those also who should be taken subsequentlj, should all
be put to death. Every one who followed him agreed with him, till
Julius CsBsar, the praetor elec^ (who has been often suspected of haying
been, at least to some extent, privy to the conspiracy,) rose, and in
an elaborate speech proposed that they should not be put to death,
but that their estates should be confiscated, and they themselves kept
in perpetual confinement. Cato opposed him with great earnestness.
' But some of Cicero's friends appeared inclined to Caesar's moticm,
thinking it a safer measure for Cicero himself; but when Cicero per-
ceived this, he rose himself, and discussed the opinions both of Silanus
and Caesar in the following speech, which decided the senate to vote
for their condemnation. And as soon as the vote had passed, Cicero
went immediately from the senate house, took Lentulus from the
custody of his kinsman Lentulus Spinther, and'delivered him to the
executioner. The other conspirators, Cethegus, Statilius, Qabinius,
&c., were in like manner conducted to execution by the praetors;
and Cicero was conducted home to his house in triumph by the
whole body of the senate and by the knights, the whole multitude
following him, and saluting him as their deliverer.
I. I SEE, 0 conscript fathers, that the looks and eyes of you
all are turned towards me ; I see that you are anxious not
only for your own danger and that of the r^ublic, but even,
if that be removed, for mine. Your good-will is delightful to
one amid evils, and pleasing amid grief ; but I entreat you,
in the name of the immortal gods, lay it aside now, and, for-
getting my safety, think of yourselves and of your children.
If, indeed, this condition of the consulship has been allotted
to me, that I should bear all bitterness, all pains and tor-
tures, I will bear them not only bravely but even cheerfully,
provided that by my toils dignity and safety are procured
for you and for the Roman people.
I am that consul, 0 conscript fathers, to whom neither the
forum in which all justice is contained, nor the Campus
Martins,^ consecrated to the consular assemblies, nor the
senate house, the chief assistance of aU nations, nor my own
home, the common refuge of all men, nor my bed devoted
to rest, in short, not even this seat of honour, this curule
chair, has ever been free from the danger of death, or from
plots and treachery. I have been silent about many things,
I have borne much, I have conceded much, I have remedied
^ The Campus Martins was consecrated or restoi^d to Mars after the
expulsion of the Tarquins ; the comUia centuriata at which all magis-
trates were created were held there.
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IV. AGAINST L. OATILINB. 319
many things with some pain to myself, amid the alarm of
you all. Now if the immortal gods have determined that
there shall be this end to my consulship, that I should snatch
you, 0 conscript fathers, and the Roman people from miser-
able slaughter, your wives and children and the v>5stal virgins
from most bitter distress, the temples and shrine's of the gods,
and this most lovely country of all of us, ftx)m impious
flames, all Italy from war and devastation ; then,* whatever
fortilne is laid up for me by myself, it shall be borne. If,
indeed, Publius Lentulus, being led on by soothsayers, believed
that his name was connected by destiny with the ^destruction
of the republic, why should not I rejoice that my consulship
has taken place almost by the express appointment of fate
for the preservation of the republic 1
II. Wherefore, 0 conscript fathers, consult the welfare of
yourselves, provide for that of the republic ; preserve your-
selves, your wives, your children, and your fortunes ; defend
the name and safety of the Roman people ; cease to spare
me, and to think of me. For, in the- first place, I ought to
hope that all the gods who preside- over this city will show
me gratitude in proportion as I deserve it; and in the second
place, if "anything does happen to me, I shall fell with a con-
tented and prepared mind ; and, indeed, death cannot be dis-
graceful to a brave man, nor premature to one of consular
rank, nor miserable to a wise man. J Not that I am a man of
so iron a disposition as not to 'Be moved by the grief of a
most dear and aflfectionate brother now present, and by the
tears, of all these men by whom you now see me surrounded.
Nor does my fainting wife, my daughter prostrate with fear,
and my little son whom the republic seems to me to embrace
as a sort of hostage for my consulship, the son-in-law who,
awaiting the end of that day, is now standing in my sight,
foil often to recal my mind to my home. I am moved by
all these circumstances, but in such a direction as to wish
that they all may be safe together with you, even if some
violence overwhelms me, rather than that both they, and we
should perish together with the republic.
Wherefore, 0 conscript fethers, attend to the safety of the
republic ; look round upon all the storms which are impending^
unless you guard against them. It is not Tiberius Gracchus,
who wished to be made a second time a tribune of the people ;
it is not Caius Gracchus, who endeavoured to excite the par-
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320 CIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
tisans of the agrarian law ; it is not Lucius SatuminuEf, who slew
Memmius, who is now in some danger, who is now brought
before the tribunal of your severity. They are now in your
hands who withstood all Home, with the object of bringing
conflagration on the whole city, massacre on all of you, and
of receiving Catiline ; their letters are in your possession,
their seals, their handwriting, and the confession of each indi-
vidual of thfem ; the Allobroges are tampered with, the slaves
are excited, Catiline is sent for ; the design is actually begun
to be put in execution, that all should be put to death, so
that no one should be left even to mourn tiie name of the
republic, and to lament over the downfal of so mighty a
dominion.
III. All these things the witnesses have informed you o^
the prisoners have confessed, you by many judgments have
already decided ; first, because you have thanked me in im-
precedented language, and have passed a vote that the con-
spiracy of abandoned men has been laid open by^my virtue
and diligence ; secondly, because you have compelled Publius
Lentulus to abdicate the prsetorship ; again, because you have
voted that he and the others about whom you have decided
should ^be given into custody; and above all, because you have
decreed a supplication in my name, an honour which has
never been paid to any one before acting in a civil capacity ;
last of all, because yesterday you gave most ample rewards to
the ambassadors of the Allobroges and to Titus Vulturcius ;
all which acts are such that they, who have been given into
custody by name, without any doubt seem ahready con-
demned by you. '
But I have determined to refer the business to you as a
fresh matter, 0 conscript fathers, both as to the fact, what
you think of it, and as to the punishment, what you vote.
I will state what it behoves the consul to state. I have seen
for a long time great madness existing in the republic, and
new designs being formed, and evil passions being stirred up,
but I never thought that so great, so destructive a conspiracy
as this was being meditated by citizens. Now to whatever
point your minds and opinions incline, you must decide
before night You see how great a crime has been made
known to you ; if you think that but few are implicated in
it you are greatly mistaken ; this evil has spread wider than
you think ; it has spread not only throughout Italy, but it
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IV. AOAINST L. OATILINB. 321
has even crossed the Alps^ and creeping stealthily on^ it has
already occupied many of the provinces ; it can by no means
be crushed by tolerating it, and by temporising with it;
however you determine on chastising it, you must act with
promptitude. -
IV. I see that as yet there are two opinions. One that of
Decius Silanus, who thinks that those who have endeavoured
to destroy all these things should be punished with death ;
the other, that x)f Caius Caesar, who objects to the punish-
ment of death, but adopts the most extreme severity of all
other punishment. Each acts in a manner suitable to his
own dignity and to the magnitude of the business with the
greatest severity. The one thinks that it is not right that
those, who have attempted to deprive all of us and the whole
Eoman people of life, to destroy the empire, to extinguish the
name of the Roman people, should enjoy life and the breath
of heaven common to us all, for one moment ; and he re-
members that this sort of punishTnent has often been employed
against worthless citizens in this republic. The other feels
that death was not appointed by the immortal gods for the
sake of punishment, but that it is either a necessity of nature,
or a rest firom toils and miseries ; therefore wise men have
never met it unwillingly, brave men have often encountered
it even voluntarily. But imprisonment, and that too per-
petual, was certainly invented for the extraordinary punish-
ment of nefarious wickedness ; ' therefore he proposes that
they should be distributed among th^ municipal towns. This
proposition seems to have in it injustice if you command it,
<iifficulty if you request it ; however, let it be so decreed if
you like.
For I will undertake, and, as I hope, I shall find one who
will not think it suitable to his dignity to refuse what you
decide on for the sake of the universal safety. He imposes
besides a severe pimishment on the burgesses of the mimi-
cipal town if any of the prisoners escape ; he surrounds them
with the most terrible guard, and with everything worthy of
the wickedness of abandoned men. And he proposes to esta-
blish a decree that no one shall be able to alleviate the
punishment of those whom he is condemning by a vote of
either the senate or the people. He takes away even hope,
which alone can comfort men in their miseries ; besides this,
he votes ^hat their goods should be confiscated; he leaves life
VOL. II. T
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322 CICERO*S ORATIONS.
alone to these infamous men, and if he had taken that away,
he would have relieved them by one pang of many tortures
of mind and body, and of all the pimidiment of their crimes.
Therefore, that there might be some dread in life to the
wicked, men of old have believed that there were some
punishments of that sort appointed for the wicked in the
shades below; because in truth they perceived that if this
were taken away death itself would not be tenible.
V. Now, 0 conscript fathers, I see what is my interest; if
you follow the opinion of Caius Csesar, (since he has adopte4
this path in the republic which is accounted the popular one,)
perhaps since he is the author and promoter of this opinion,
tha popular violence will be less to be dreaded by me ; if you
adjpt the other opinion, I know not whether I am not likely
to have more trouble ; but still let the advantage of the
republic outweigh the consideration of my danger. For we
have from Caius Csesar, as his own dignity and as the illus-
trious character of his ancestors demanded, a vote as a hostage
of his lasting good- will to the republic ; it has been clearly
seen how great is the difference between the lenity of dema-
gogues, and a disposition really attached to the interests of
the people. I see that of those men who wish to be con-
sidered attached to the people one man is absent, that they
may not seem forsooth to give a vote about the lives cf
Eoman citizens. He only three days ago gave Boman citizens
into custody, and decreed me a supplication, and voted most
magnificent rewards to the witnesses only yesterday. It is
not now doubtful to any one what he, who voted for the im-
prisonment of the criminals, congratulation to him who had
detected them, and rewards to those who had proved the
crime, thinks of the whole matter, and of the cause. But
Caius Csesar considers that the Sempronian^ law was passed
about Roman citizens, but that he who is an enemy of the
repubhc can by no means be a citizen ; and moreover that
the very proposer of the Sempronian law suffered punishment
by the command of the people. He also denies that Lentulus,
a briber and a spendthr^, after he has formed such cruel and
^ The Sempronian law was proposed by Caius Gracchus, b.o. 128, and
enacted that the people only should decide respecting the life or civil
condition of a citizen. It is alluded to also in the oration Pro Babir.
c. 4, where Cicero says, "Caius Gracchus passed a law that no decision
should be come to about the life of a Eoman citizen without your com-
mand," speaking to the Quirites.
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lY. AGAINST L. OATILINB. 323
bitter plans about the destruction of the Roman people, and
the ruin of this city, can be called a friend of the people.
Therefore this most gentle and merciful man does not hesitate
to commit Publius Lentulus to eternal darkness and imprison-
ment," and establishes a law to all posterity that no one shall
be able to boast of alleyiating his pimishment, or hereafter to
appear a friend of the people to the destruction of the Boman
people. He adds also the confiscation of their goods, so that
want also and beggary may be added to all the torments of
mind and body.
VI. Wherefore, if you decide on this you give me a com-
panion in my address, dear and acceptable to the Koman
people ; or if you prefer to adopt the opinion of Silanus, you
will^ easily defend me and yourselves from the reproach of
cruelty, and I will prevail that it shall be much lighter.
Although, 0 conscript fathers, what cruelty can there be in
chastising the enormity of such excessive wickedness 1 For
I decide from my own feeling. For so may I be allowed to
enjoy the repubUc in safety in your company, as I am not
moved to be somewhat vehement in this cause by any severity
of disposition, (for who is more merciful than I am?) but rather
by a singular humanity and mercifulness. For I seem to
myself to see this city, the light of the world, and the citadel
of all nations, falling on a sudden by one conflagration. I see
in my mind's eye miserable and unburied heaps of cities in
my buried coimtry ; the sight of Cethegus and his madness
raging amid your slaughter is ever present to my sight. But
when I have set before myself Lentulus reigning, as he him-
self confesses that he had hoped was his destiny, and this
Gabinius arrayed in the purple, and Catiline arrived with his
army, then I shudder at the lamentation of matrons, and the
flight of virgins and of boys, and the insults of the vestal
virgins ; and because these things appear to me exceedingly
miserable and pitiable, therefore I show myself severe and
rigorous to those who have wished to bring about this state
of things. I ask, forsooth, if any fether of a family, supposing
his children had been slain by a slave, his wife miird^red, his
house burnt, were not to inflict on his slaves the severest
possible punishment, would he appear clement and merciful,
or most inhuman and cruel 1 To me he would seem unnatural
and hard-hearted who did not soothe his own pain and
anguish by the pain and torture of the criminal. And so we,
t2
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324 CIOERO*S ORATIONS.
in the case of these men who desired to murder us, and our
wives, and our children, — ^who endeavoured to d^roy the
houses of every individual among us, and also the republic^
the home of all, — ^who designed to place the nation of the
Allobroges on the relics of this city, and on the ashes of the
empire destroyed by fire ; — if we are very rigorouEf, we shall
be considered merciful ; if we choose to be lax, we must
endure the character of the greatest cruelty, to the damage of
our country and our fellow-citizens.
Unless, indeed, Lucius^ Csesar, a thoroughly brave man, and
of the best disposition towards the republic, seemed to any
one to be too cruel three days ago, when he said that the hus-
band of his own sister, a most excellent woman, (in his presence
and in his hearing,) ought to be deprived of hfe, — when he said
that his grandfitther had been put to death by command of the
consul, and his youthful son, sent as an ambassador by his
£etther, had been put to death in prison. And what deed
had they done like these men 1 had they formed any plan for
destroying the republic 1 At that time great corruption was
rife in the republic, and there was the greatest strife between
parties. Anc^ at that time, the grand&ther of this Lentulus,
a most illustrious man, put on his armour Imd pursued Grac-
chus ; he even received a severe wound that there might be no
diminution of the great dignity of the republic. But this man,
his grandson, invited the Gaids to overthrow the foundations
of the republic ; he stirred up the slaves, he summoned Cati-
line, he distributed us to Ce^egus to be massacred, and the
rest of the citizens to Gabinius to be assassinated, the city he
allotted to Cassius to bum, and the plundering and devastat-
ing of all Italy he Assigned to Catiline. You fear, I think, lest
in the case of such unheard-of and abominable wickedness you
should seem to decide anything with too great severity ; when
we ought much more to fear lest by being remiss in punishing
we should appear cruel to our country, rather than appear by
the severity of our irritation too rigorous to its most bitter
enemies.
YII. But, 0 conscript fitthenf, I cannot conceal what I
^ The broiher-in-law of Lndus Caesar was Marcog Folviii^ whose
death, at the eommand of Opimius the consul, is referred to in the
2d cap. Ist Cat He sent his son to the consul to treat for his surrender,
whom Opimius sent hack the first time, and forhade to return to him ;
when he did return, he put him to death.
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IV. AGAINST L. OATILINB. 325
hear ; for sayings &re bruited about, which come to my earSy
of those men who seem to fear that I may not have force
enough to put in execution the things which you determine
on this day. Everything is provided for, and prepared, and
arranged, 0 conscript fathers, both by my exceeding care
and (£ligence, and also by the still greater zeal of the Eoman
people for the retaining of their supreme dominion, and for
the preserving of the fortunes of all. All men of all ranks are
present, and of all ages ; the forum is full, the temples around
the forum are full, all itie approaches to this place and to this
temple are full. For this is the only cause that has ever been
known since the first foundation of the city, in which all men
were of one and the same opinion— except those, who, as they
saw they must be ruined, preferred to perish in company with
all the world rather than by themselves.
These men I except, and I willingly set them apart from
the rest ; for I do not think that they should be cla^d in the
number of worthless citizens, but in that of the most bitter
enemies. But, as for the rest ; 0 ye immortal gods ! in what
crowds, with what zeal, with what virtue do they agree in
defence of the conunon dignity and safety. Why should I here
speak of the Roman knights 1 who yield to you the supremacy
in rank and wisdom, in order to vie with you in love for the
republic, — whom this day and this cause now reimite with you
in alliance and unanimity with your body, reconciled after a
disagreement of many years. And if we can preserve for ever
in the republic this union now established in my consulship, I
pledge myself to you that no civil and domestic calamity can
ber^fter reach any part of the repubHc. I see that the tri-
bunes of the treasury — excellent men — ^have united with similar
zeal in defence of itie repubHc, and all the notaries.^ For as
this day had by chance brought them in crowds to the treasury,
I see that they were diverted from an anxiety for the money
due to them, from an expectation of their capital, to a regard
for the common safety. The entire multitude of honest
men, even the poorest, is present ; for who is there to whom
these templefif, tiie sight of the city, the possession of liberty,
1 The notaries at Boine were in the pay of the state ; they were chiefly
employed in making np the public accounts. In the time of Cicero it
seems to have been lawful for any one to obtain the office of wriba
by purchase, (see Cic in Verr. iL 79,^ and ft^edmen and their sons fre-
quently availed themselves of this privilege.
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326 OIOBRO'S ORATIONS.'
— ^in short, this light and this soil of his, common to us all, is
not both dear and pleasant and delightful ]
VIII. It is worth while, 0 conscript fiithers, to know the
inclinations of the freedmen ; who, having by their good for-
tune obtained the rights of citizens, consider this to be really
their country, which some who have been bom here, and bom
in the highest rank, have considered to be not their own coun-
try, but a city of enemies. But why should I speak of men of
this body whom their private fortunes, whom their common
republic, whom, in short, that liberty which is most delightful
has called forth to defend the safety of their country ? Th&ce
is no slave who is only in an endurable condition of slavery
who does not shudder at the audacity of citizens, who does
not desire that these things may stand, who does not con-
tribute all the good-will that he can, and all that he dares, to
the common safety.
Wherefore, if this consideration moves any one, that it has
been heard that some tool of Lentulus is running about the
shops, — ^is hoping that the minds of some poor and ignorant
men may be corrupted by bribery ; that, indeed, has been
attempted and begun, but no one has been found either so
wretched in their fortune or so abandoned in their inchnation
as not to wish the place of their seat and work and daily gain,
their chamber and their bed, and, in short, the tranquil course
of their lives, to be still preserved to them. And far- the
greater part of those who are in the shops, — ^ay, indeed, (for
that is the more correct way of speaking,) the whole of this
class is of all the most attached to tranquillity ; their whole
stock, forsooth, their whole employment and livelihood, exists
by the peaceful intercourse of the citizens, and is wholly sup-
ported by peace. And if their gains are diminished whenever
their shops are shut, what will tiiey be when they are burnt 1
And, as this is the case, 0 conscript fathers, the protection of
the Roman people is not wanting to you ; do you take care
that you do not seem to be wanting to the Roman people.
IX. You have a consul preserved out of many dangers and
plots, and from death itself not for his own life, but for your
safety. All ranks agree for the preservation of the republic
with heart and will, with zeal, with virtue, with their voice.
Your common country, besieged by the hands and weapons of
an impious conspiracy, stretches forth her hands to you as a
suppliant ; to you she recommends herself, to you she recom-
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IV. AGAINST L. CATILINE 327
mends the lives of all the citizens, and the citadel, and the
Capitol, and the altars of the household gods, and the eternal
unextinguishable fire of Vesta, and all the temples of all the
gods, and the altars and the walls and the houses of the city.
Moreover, your own lives, those of yo\ir wives and children^
the fortunes of all men, your homes, your hearths, are this
day interested in your decision.
You have a leader mindful of you, forgetful of himself— -an
opportunity which ia not always given to men ; you have all
ranks, all individuals, the whole Roman people, (a thing which
in civil transactions we see this day for the first time,) fiill of
one and the same feeling. Think with what great labour this
our dominion was founded, by what virtue this our liberty was
established, by what kind favour of the gods our fortunes were
aggrandized and ennobled, and liow nearly one night destroyed
them all. That this may never hereafter be able not only to
be done, but not even to be thought of, you must this day take
care. And I have spoken thus, not in order to stir you up
who almost outrun me myself, but that my voice, which oi^ht
to be the cWef voice in the republic, may appear to have ful-
filled the duty which belongs to me as consul.
X. Now, before I return to the decision, I will say a few
words concerning myself. As numerous as is the band of con-
spirators,— ^and you see that it is very great, — ^so numerous a
multitude of enemies do I see that I have brought upon my-
self. But I consider them base and powerless and despicable
. and abject But if at any time that band shall be excited by
the wickedness and madness of any one, and shall show itself
moTO powerful than your dignity and that of the republic, yet,
0 conscript fathers, I shall never repent of my actions and of
my advice. Death, indeed, which they perhaps threaten me
with, is prepared for all men ; such glory during life as you
have honoured me with by your decrees no one has ever
attained to. For you have passed votes of congratulation to
others for having governed the republic successfully, but to
me alone for having saved it.
Let Scipio be thought illustrious, he by whose wisdom and
valour Hknnibal was compelled to return into Africa, and to
depart fi-om Italy. Let the second Africanus be extolled with
conspicuous praise, who destroyed two cities most hostile to this
empire, Carthage and Numantia. Let Lucius Paullus be
thought a great man, he whose triimiphal car was graced
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328 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
by VerfieR, preTiously a most powerful and noble monarch.
Let MariuB be held in eternal honour, who twice deliyered
Italy from siege, and from the fear of slavery. Let Pom-
pey be preferred to them all — Pompey, whose exploits and
whose virtues are bounded by the same districts and limits as
the course of the sun. There will be, forsooth, among the
jJraises of these men, some room for my glory, xmless haply it
be a greater deed to open to us provinces whither we may fly,
than to take care that those who are at a distance may, wh^i
conquerors, have a home to return to.
Although in one point the circumstances of foreign triumph
are better than those of domestic victory ; because foreign
enemies, either if they be crushed become one's servants, or if
they be received into the state, think themselves boimd to us
by obligation; but those of the number of citizens who
become depraved by madness and once begin to be enemies
to their country, — ^those men, when you have defeated their
attempts to injure the republic, you can neither restrain by
force nor conciliate by kindness. So that I see that an
eternal war with all wicked citizens has been undertaken by
me ; which, however, I am confident can easily be driven
back from me and mine by your aid, and by that of all good
men, and by the memory of such great dangers, which will
remain^ not only among this people which has been saved,
but in the discourse and minds of all nations for ever. Nor,
in truth, can any power be found which will be able to under-
mine and destroy your union with the Roman knights, and
such unanimity as exists among all good men.
XI. As, then, this is the case, 0 conscript Others, instead
of my military command,— instead of the army, — instead of
the province* which I have neglected, and the other badges
of honour whidi have been rejected by me for the saka^f
protecting the city and your. Bafety,rr-in place of the ties of
clientship and hospitality with citizens in the provinces,
which, however, by my influence in the city, I study to pre-
serve with as much toil as I labour to acquire them,-=:^
place of all these things, and in reward for my singular zeal
' Cicero, in order to tempt Antonins to aid him in connteracting
the treasonable designs of Catiline, had g^yen np to him the province of
Macedonia, which had fallen to his own lot ; and having accepted that
of Cisalpine Qanl in exchange for it, he gave that i3so to Quintna
Metellns ; being resolved to receive no emolument, directly or indireetlj,
from his consulship.
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IV. AOAmST L. CATILINE. 329
in your behalf, and for this diligence in saving the republic
which yon behold, I ask nothing of you but ^e recollection
of this time and of my whole consulship. And ^as long as
that is fixed in your minds, I shall think I am fenced round
by the strongest wall. But if the violence of wicked men
shall deceive and overpower my expectations, I recommend to
you my little son, to whom, in truth, it will be protection
enough, not only for his safety, but even for his dignity, if
you recollect that he is the son of him who has saved all
these things at his own single risk.
Wherefore, 0 conscript fathers, determine with cafe, as you
have b^un, and boldly, concerning your own safety, and that
of the Roman people, and concerning your wives and chil-
dren; concerning your altars and your hearths, yoiur shrines
and temples; concerning the houses and homes of the whole
city ; concerning your dominion, your liberty, and the safety
of Italy and the whole republic. For you have a consul who
will not hesitate to obey your decrees, and who will be fible,
as long as he lives, to defend what you decide on, and oThis
own power to execute it.*
1 This speech was spoken, and the criminals execated, on the fifth. of
December. Bat Catiline was not yet entirely overcome. He had with
him in Etniria two legions, — about twelve thousand men ; of which,
however, not above one quarter were regularly armed. For some time
by marches and countermarches he eluded Antonins, but when the news
reached his army of the fate of the rest of the conspirators, it began
to desert him in great numbers. He attempted to escape into Gaul,
but found himself intercepted by Metellus, who had been sent thither
by Cicero with three legions. Antonius is supposed not to have been
disinclined to connive at his escape, if he had not been compelled as it
were by his quaestor Sextus and his lieutenant Petreius to force him to
a battle, in which, however, Antonius himself, being ill of the gout, did
not take the command, which devolved on Petreius, who after a severe
action destroyed Catiline and his whole army, of which every man is
said to have been slain in the battle.
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330 CIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
THE ORATION OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF
L. MURENA, PROSECUTED FOR BRIBERY.
THH ABGUXEHT.
Lucius Murena was one of the consuls elect ; the other being SilanuB,
the brother-in-law of Cato. Cato, however, instigated Sulpicius, one
of the most eminent lawyers in Borne, and a defeated competitor for
the consulship, to prosecute Murena for bribery, under the new
law passed by Cicero, (mentioned in the argument to the first oration
against CatiUne,) though he brought no charge against Silanug, who
was as guilty as Murena, if there was any guilt at all. Murena had
senred as lieutenant to Lucullus in the Mithridatic war. Murena was
defended by Crassus, Hortensius, and Cicero. We have neither of
the speeches of his other advocates ; and even the speech of Cicero'Ts
not. in a perfect state. Murena was uiuiiiimously acquitted, partly
perhaps from consideration of the argument which Cicero dwelt upon
vf ry earnestly, of what great importance it was, at such a perilous
time, (for this oration was spoken in the interval between the flight of
<>atiline to the camp of Manlius, and the final detection and cod.-
demnation of the conspirators who remained behind,) to have a consul
of tried bravery and military experience. It is remarkable that
Sulpicius, the prosecutor, was a most intimate friend of Cicero, who
had exerted all his influence to procure his election in this very
contest for the consulship ; and so also was Cato ; nor did the oppo-
sition which Cicero made to them in this case cause any interruption
to their intimacy, and we shall find, in the Philippics, Cicero exerting
himself to procure public funeral honours for Sulpicius.
I. What I entreated of the immortal gods, 0 judges,
according to the manners and institutions of our ancestors, oji
that day when, after taking the auspices in the comitia centu-
riata,' I declared Lucius Murena to have been elected coijisul, —
namely, that that feet might turn out gloriously and happily
for me and for my office, and for the Roman nation and
people,— that same thing do I now pray for from the same
1 The comitia centimata, or as they were sometimes called majora,
were the assembly in which the people gave their votes according to the
classification instituted by Servius Tullius; they were held in the
Campus Martins without the city, and in reference to their military
organization they were summoned by the sound of the horn, not by the
voice of the lictor. All magistrates were elected in these comitia.
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FOR L. MUBBNA. 331
immortal gods, that the consulship may be obtained by that
same man with safety, and that your inclinations and opinions
may agree with the wishes and sufiErages of the Eoman people,
and that that feet may bring to you and to the Roman
people peace, tranquillity, ease, and imanimity. And if that
solenm prayer of the comitia, consecrated under the auspices
of the consul, has as much power and holy influence as the
dignity of the republic requires, I pray also that the matter
may turn out happily, fortunately, and prosperously to those
men to whom the consulship was given when I presided over
the election.
And as this is the case, 0 judges, and as aU the power of
tte immortal gods is either transferred to, or at all events "5
shared with you, the ^me consul recommends him now to
your good feith who before recommended him to the immortal
gods ; so that he being both declared consul and being defended
by the voice of the same man, may uphold the kindness of'
the Roman people to your safety and that of all the citizens.
And since in this duty which I have undertaken the zeal of'
my defence has been found feult with by the accusers, and
even the very fact of my having undertaken the cause at all,
before I begin to say anything of Lucius Murena, I will say a
few words oti behalf of myself; not because at this time the
defence of my duty seems to me more important than that of
hi^ eafety, but in order that, when what I have done is approved
o£ by you, I may be able with the greater authority to repel
the attacks of his enemies upon his honour, his reputation,
and all his fortunes.
II. And first of all I will answer Marcus Cato, a man who
directs his life by a certain rule and system, and who most
carefully weighs the motives of every duty, about my own
duty. Cato says it is not right, that I who have been consul
and the very passer* of the law of bribery and corruption,
and who behaved so rigorously in my own consulship, should
take up the cause of Lucius Murena ; and his reproach has
great weight with me, and makes me desirous to make not only
* There had been several previous laws against bribery and corruption
{de ambUv), The Lex ^ mm, -passed b.o. 67, imposed a fine on the
offending party, with exclnsion from the senate, and from all public
offices. ^^i^LexTuUia, passed in Cicero's consulship, added banishmwit
for ten years ; and, among other restrictions, forbade any one to exhibit
gladiators within two years of his being a candidate, unless he was
required to do so on a jfiied day by a testator's will.'
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332 X^CEBO'S ORATIONS.
you, 0 judges, whom I am especially bound to satisfy, but
also Cato himself, a most worthy and upright man, approve
the reasons of my action. By whom then, 0 Marcus Cato,
is it more just that a consul should be defended than by a
consul ? Who can there be, who ought there to be, dearer to
me in the republic, than he to whom the republic which has
been supported by my great labours and dangers is delivered
by me alone to be supported for the future 1 For if, in the
demanding back things which may be alienated, he ought to
incur the hazard of the trial who has bound himself by a l^al
obligation, surely still more rightly in the trial of a consul
elect, that consul who has declared him consul ought most
especially to be the first mover of the kindness of the Roman
people, and his defender from dangei'.
And if, as is accustomed to be done in some states, an
advocate were appointed to this cause by the public, that man
would above all others be assigned to one invested with
honours as his defender, who having himself enjoyed the same
honour, brought to his advocacy no less authority than ability.
But if those who are being wafted from the main into har-
bour are wont with the greatest care to inform those who are
sailing out of harbour, of the character of storms, and pirates,
and of places, because nature prompts us to favour those who
are entering on the same dangers which we have passed
through, of what disposition ought I to be, who after having
been much tossed about am now almost in sight of land, towards
him by whom I see the greatest tempests of the republic
about to be encountered 1 Wherefore, if it is the part of a
virtuous consul not only to see what is being done, but to
foresee what is likely to happen, I will show in another place
how much it is for the interest of the common safety that
there should be two consuls in the republic on the first of
January. And if that be the case, then it is not so much my
duty which ought to summon me to defend the fortunes of a
man who is my friend, as the republic which ought to invite
the consul to the defence of the common safety.
III. For as to my having passed a law concerning bribery
and corruption, certainly I passed it so as not to abrogate
that law which I have long since made for myself concerning
defending my fellow- citizens from dangers. I^ indeed, I con-
fessed that a largess had been distributed, and were to defend
it as having been rightly done, I should be acting wrongly,
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VOB L. MXJBENA. 333
even if another had passed the law ; but when I am saying
in defence that nothing has been done contrary to law, then
what reason is there that my having passed the law should be
an obstacle to my imdertakin^ the defence 1
He says that it does not belong to the same severity of
eharaoter, to have banished from the city by wordc^ and
almost by express command, Catiline, when planning the
destruction of the republic within its very walls, and now to
speak on behalf of Lucius > Murena. But I have always
willingly acted the part of lenity and clemency, which nature
itself has taught me ; but I have not sought the character of
severity and rigour ; but I have supported it when imposed
upon me by tiie republic, as the dignity of this empire
required at the time of the greatest peril to the citizens. But
if then, when the public required vigour and severity, I over-
came my nature, and was as severe as I was forced to be, not
as I wished to be; now, when all causes invite me to mercy and
humanity, with what great zeal ought I to obey my nature
and my usual habits 1 and concerning my duty of defending;
and your method of prosecuting, perhaps I shall have again
to speak in another part of my speech.
But, 0 judges, the complaint of Servius Sulpicius, a most
wise and accomplished man, moved me no less than the accu-
sation of Cato ; for he said that he was exceedingly and most
bitterly vexed that I had forgotten my friendship and inti-
macy with him, and was defending the cause of Lucius
Murena against him. I wish, 0 juices, to satisfy him, and
to make you arbitrators between us. For as it is a sad thing
to be accused with truth in a case of friendship, so, even if
you be falsely accused, it is not to be neglected. I, 0 Servius
Sulpicius, both allow that according to my intimacy with you
I did owe you all my zeal and activity to assist you in your
canvass, and I think I displayed it. When you stood for the
consulship, nothing on my part was wanting to you which,
could have been expected either from a friend, or from an
obliging person, or from a consul. That time has gone by, —
the case is changed. I think, and am persuaded, that I owed
you as much aid as ever you have ventured to require of me
against the advancement of Lucius Murena; but no aid at all
against his safety. Nor does it follow, because I stood by you
when you were a candidate for the consulship, that on that
account I ought now to be an assistant to you in the same
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334 CIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
way, when you are attacking Murena himself. And this is
not only not praiseworthy, — ^it is not even allowable, that we
may not defend even those who are mo^t entirely strangers
to us when our friends accuse them.
IV. But, in truth, there is, 0 judges, between Murena and
myself an ancient and great friendship, which shall not be
overwhelmed in a capital trial by Servius Sulpicius, merely
because it was overcome by superior considerations when he
was contesting an honourable office with that same person.
And if this cause had not existed, yet the dignity of the man,
and the honourable nature of that office which he has
obtained, would have branded me with the deepest reproach
of pride and cruelty, if in so great a danger I had repudiated
the cause of a man so distinguished by his. own virtues and
by the honours paid him by the Roman people. For it is
not now in my power, — it is not possible, for me to shrink
from devoting my laboTir to alleviate the dangers of others.
For when such rewards have been given me for this diligence
of mine, such as before now have never been given to any
one, to abandon those labours by which I have earned them,
as soon as I have received them, would be the act of a crafty
and ungrateful man.
If, indeed, I may rest from my labours, — ^if you advise me
that I can do so, — if no reproach of indolence, none of un-
worthy arrogance, none of inhumanity is incurred by so
doing, in good truth I will willingly rest. But if flying from
toil convicts me of laziness, — if rejection of suppliants con-
victs me of arrogance, — if neglect of my friends is a proof of
worthlessness, then, above all others, this cause is such an one
as no industrious, or mercifiil, or obliging man can abandon.
And you may easily form your opinion of this matter, 0
Servius, from your own pursuits. For if you think it neces-
sary to give answers to even the adversaries of your friends
when they consult you about law, and if you think it shame-
ful, when you have been retained as an advocate for him in
whose cause you have come forward, to fail; be not so unjust,
as, when your springs are open even to your enemies, to think^
it right that our small streams should be closed even against
our friends.
Forsooth, if my intimacy with you had prevented my ap-
pealing in this cause, and k the same thing had happened to
'^uintus Hortensius and Marcus Crassus, most honourable
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FOB L. MUBBNA. 335
men, and to others ako by whom I know that your affection
is greatly esteemed, the consul elect would have had no
defender in that city in which our ancestors intended that
even the lowest of the people should never want an advocate.
But I, 0 judges, should think myself wicked if I had &,iled
my friend, — cruel if I had failed one in distress, — arrogant if
I had failed the consul So that what ought to be given to
friendship shall be abundantly given by me ; so that I will
deal with you, 0 Servius, as if my brother, who is the dearest
of all men to me, stood in yoiir place. What ought to be
given to duty, to good &ith, to religion, that I will so regulate
as to recollect that I am speaking contrary to the wish of one
friend to defend another friend from danger.
♦V. I imderstand, 0 judges, that this whole accusation is
divided into three parts; and that one of them refers to find-
ing fault with Murena's habits of life, another to his contest
for the dignity, and a third to charges of bribery and corrup-
tion. And of these three divisions, that first, which ought to
have been the weightiest of all, was so weak and trifling, that
it was rather some general rule of accusing, than any real
occasion for finding fault, which prompted them to say any-
thing about the way of life of Lucius Murena. For Asia has
been mentioned as a reproach to him, which was not sought
by him for the sake of pleasure and luxury, but was traversed
by him in the performance of military labours ; but if he
while a young man had not served imder his fether when
general, he would have seemed either to have been afraid of
the enemy, or of the command of his fitther, or else to have
been repudiated by his father. Shall v^e say that, when aU
the sons who wear the prsetexta* are accustomed to sit on the
chariot of those who are celebrating a triumph, this man
ought to have shimned adorning the triumj^ of his father
with military gifts, so as almost to share his father's triumph
for exploits which they had performed in common 1
But this man, 0 judges, both was in Asia and was a great
assistance to that bravest of men, his own feither, in his
dangers, a comfort to him in his labours, a source of congra-
tulation to him in his victory. And if Asia does carry with
it a suspicion of luxury, surely it is a praiseworthy thing,
1 The toga prcstexta was a robe bordered with purple, worn by the
higher magistrates, and by freebom children till they arrived at the age
of manhood.
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336 OIOBBOS OBATIONS.
not never to have seen Asia, but to have lived temperately in
Asia. So that the name of Asia shotQd not have been ob-
jected to Lucius Murena, a country whence renown was de-
rived for his femily, lasting recollection for his race, honour
and glory for his name, but some crime or disgrace, either
incuired in Asia, or brought home from Asia. But to have
served campaigns in that war which was not only the greatest
but the only war which the Boman people was waging at that
time, is a proof of valour; to have served most willingly under
his father, who was commander-in-chie^ is a proof of piety ;
that the end of his campaign was the victoiy and triumph of
his Neither, is a proof of good fortune. There is, therefore, no
room in these matters for speaking ill of him, because praise
takes up the whole room.
YL Cato calls Lucius Murena a dancer. If this be im-
puted to him truly, it is the reproach of a violent accuser;
but if £sdsely, it is the abuse of a scurrilous railer. Where-
fore, as you are a person of such influence, you ought not, O
Marcus Cato, to pick up abusive expressions out of the streets,
or out of some quarrel of bufibons; you ought not rashly to
call a consul of the Boman people a dancer; but to consider
with what other vices besides that man must be tainted to
whom that can with truth be imputed. For no man, one may
almost say, ever dances when sober, imless perhaps he be a
madman, nor in solitude, nor in a moderate and sober party;
dancing is the last companion of prolonged feasting, of lux-
tuious situation, and of many refinements. You charge me
with that which must necesstuily be the last of all vices, you
say nothing of those things without which this vice absolutely
cannot exist: no shameless feasting, no improper love, no
carousing, no lust, no extravagance is alleged; and when
those things which have the name of pleasure, and which are
vicious, are not found, do you think that you will find the
shadow of luxury in that man in whom you cannot find the
luxury itself 1
Can nothing, therefore, be said agamst the life of Lucius
Murena 1 Alwolutely nothing, I say, 0 judges. The consul
elect is defended by me on this ground, that no fraud of hiai,
no avarice, no perfidy, no cruelty, no wanton word can be
alleged against him in his whole life. It is welL The foun-
dations of the defence are laid; for we are not as yet defend-
ing this virtuous and upright man with my own pan^yrio,
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FOR L. MURENA. 337
which I will employ presently, but almost by the confession
of his adversaries,
YII. And now that this is settled, the approach to the
contest for this dignity, which was the second part of the
accnsation, is more easy to me. I see that there is in you,
0 Servius Sulpicius, the greatest dignity of birth, of integrity,
of industry, and of all the other accomplishments which a
man ought to rely on when he offers himself as a candidate
for the consulship. I know that all those qualities are equal
in Lucius Murena, and so equal that he can neither be sur-
passed in worth by you, nor can himself surpass you in worth.
You have spoken slightingly of the family of Lucius Murena,
you have extolled your own ; but if you dwell on this topic
so as to allow no one to he considered as bom of a good
femily, unless he be a patrician, you will compel the common
people again tp secede to the Aventine Hill.^ But if there are
honourable and considerable femihes among the plebeians, —
both the great-grandfather of Lucius Miirena, and his grand-
father, were praetors; and his &ther, when he had triumphed
most splendidly and honourably for exploits performed in his
prsetorahip, left the steps towards the acquisition of the con-
sulship more easy, because that honour which was due to the
father was demanded by the son.
But your nobility, 0 Servius Sulpicius, although it is most-
eminent, yet it is known rather to men versed in literature
and history, but not muck so to the people and to the
voters. For your father was in the rank of the knights, your
grand&ther was renowned for no conspicuous action. So that
the recollection of your nobility is to be extracted not from
the modem conversation of men, but from the antiquity >of
am^als. So that I also am accustomed to class you in obr
number, because you by your own virtue and industi^y,
though you are the son of a Roman knight, have yet earnbd
the being considered worthy of the very highest advanceraeit.
Nor did it ever seem to me that there was less virtue in
Quintus Pompeius, a new man and a most brave man, than ^
that most high-bom man, Marcus iEmilius. Indeed, it iiS^ a
proof of the same spirit and genius, to hand down to his j^s-
* This refers to tke time of Appius the decemvir, Tfhen the soldiers,
at the call of Virginius, after the death of Virginia, occupied the
Aventine, and were joined by great part of the plebs, demanaing 4ho
abolition of the decern virate.
VOL. II. Z
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838 CIOERO'S ORATIONS.
terity, as Pompeius lid, an honourable name, which he had m>t
received from his ancestors ; and, as Scaurus did, to renew the
recollection of his fistmilj which was almost extinct.
YIII. Although I now thought, 0 judges, that it had been
brought about bj my labours, that a want of nobleness of
birth should not be objected to many brave men, who were
n^lected, though men were praising not only the Curii, the
Catos, the Pompeii, those ancient new but most distinguished
men, but also, these more modem new men, the Marii, and
DidH, and Coelii But when I, after so great an interval, had
broken down those barriers of nobility, so that entrance to the
consulship should hereafter be opened, as it was in the time of
b our ancestors, not more to high birth than to virtue, I did not
thipk when a consul-elect of an ancient and illustrious fiunily
was being defended by the son of a Eoman knight, himself a
consul, that the accusers would say anything about newness of
£unily. In truth it happened to me myself to stand against
two patricians, one a most worthless and audacious man, the
other a most modest and virtuous one ; yet I surpassed Cati-
line in worth, Galba in popularity. But if that ought to have
been imputed as a crime to a new man, forsooth, I diould have
iranted neither enemies nor detractors.
Let us, therefore, give up saying anything about birth, the
dignity of which is great in both the candidates ; let us look
at the other points. ' He stood for the qusestorship' at the
same time with me, and I was appointed first." We need not
answer every point ; for it cannot escape the observation of
any one of you, when many men are appointed equal in
dignity, but only one can obtain the first place, that the order
of the dignity and of the declaration of it are not the same,
because the declaration has degrees, but the dignity of all is
usually the same. But the qusestorship of each was given
them by almost an equal decision of the lots : the one had hy
the Titian law a quiet and orderly province ; you had thai
one of Ostia, at the name of which, when the quaestors distri-:
bute the provinces by lot, a shout is raised, — a province not so
much pleasant and illustrious as troublesome and vexatious.
The name of each was together in the quaestorship. For the
drawing of the lots gave you no field on which your virtue
could <Ssplay itself and make itself known.
IX. The remaining space of time is dedicated to the contest
It was employed by each in a very dissimilar fashion. Servius
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FOB L. MUBENA. 339
adopted the civil service, full of anxiety and annoyance, of an-
swering, writing, cautioning; he learned the civil law; he
worked early and late, he toiled, he was visible to every One,
he endured the folly of crowds, he tolerated their arrogance,
he bore all sorts of difficulties, he hved at the will of others, not
at his own. It is a great credit, a thing pleasing to men, for
one man to labour hard in that science which will profit many.
What has Murena been doing in the meantime 1 He was
lieutenant to Lucius LucuUus, a very brave and wise man, and
a consummate general ; and in this post he commanded an
army, he fought a battle, he engaged the enemy, he routed
numerous forces of the enemy, he took several cities, some by
storm, some by blockade. He traversed that populous and
luxurious Asia you speak of, in such a manner as to leave in
it no trace either of his avarice or of his luxu^ ; in a most
important war he so behaved himself that he performed many
glorious exploits without the commander-in-chief; but the
commander-in-chief did nothing without him. And all these
things, although I am speaking in the presence of Lucius
Lucullus, yet that we may not appear to have a licence of in-
vention granted us by him on accoimt of the danger we are in,
we are borne witness to in the public despatches ; in which
Lucius Lucullus gives him such praise as no ambitious nor
envious commander-in-chief could have given another while
dividing with him the credit of his exploits.
There is in each of the rivals the greatest honesty, the
greatest worth ; which I, if Servius will allow me, will place in
equal and in the same panegyric. But he will not let me ; he
discusses the military question ; he attacks the whole of his
services as lieutenant ; he thinks the consulship is an office
requiring diligence and all this daily labour. "Have you
been," says he, " so many years with the army ? you can never
have been near the forum. Have you been away so long 1 and
then, when after a long interval you arrive, wUl you contend
in dignity with those who have made their abode in the
forum r First of all, as to that assiduity of ours, 0 Servius,
you know not what disgust, what satiety, it sometimes causes
men ; it was, indeed, exceedingly advantageous for me myself
that my influence was in the sight of all men ; but I overcame
the weariness of me by my own great labour ; and you, perfiaps,
have done the same thing, but yet\ regret at our absence
would have been no injury to either of us.
z2
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340 oicbro'b orations.
But^ to say no more of this, and to return to the contest of
studies and pursuits; how can it be doubted that the glory
of military exploits contributes more dignity to aid in the
acquisition of the consulship, than renown for skill in ciyil
law 1 Do you wake before the night is over in order to give
answers to those who consult you 9 He has done so in order
to arrive betimes with his army at the place to which he is
marching. The cock-crow wakens you, but the soimd of the
trumpet rouses him : you conduct an action ; he is marshalling
an army : you take care lest your clients should be convicted;
he lest his cities or camp be taken. He occupies posts, and
exercises skill to repel the troops of the enemy, you to keep
out the rain ; he is practised in extending the boundaries of
the empire, you in governing the present territories ; and in
short, for I must say what I think, preeminence in military
skill excels all other virtues.
X. It is this which has procured its name for the Boman
people ; it is this which has procured eternal glory for this
city ; it is this which has compelled the whole world to sub-
mit to our dominion; all domestic affidrs, all these illustrious
pursuits of ours, and our forensic renown, and our industry,
are safe under the guardianship and protection of military
valour. As soon as the first suspicion of disturbance is heaid
of, in a moment our arts have not a word to say for them-
selves.
And since you seem to me to embrace that knowledge of the
law which you have, as if it were a^darling daughter, I will
not permit you to lie under such a mistake as to think that,
whatever it may be, which you have so thoroughly learnt^
anything very preeminent. For your other virtues of con-
tinence, of gravity, of justice, of good fiuth, and all other
good qualities I have fidways considered you very worthy of
file consulship and of all honour; but as for your having
learnt civil law, I will not say you have wasted your pains,
but I will say that there is no way made to lead to the con-
sulship by that profession ; for all arts which cax\ conciliate
for us the good-will of the Roman people ought to possess
both an admirable dignity, and a very delightful utility.
XI. The highest dignity ia in those men who excel in mili-
tary glory. For all things which" are in the empire and in
the constitution of the state, are supposed to be defended and
strengthened by them. There is also the greatest usefulness
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FOB L. MUBBNA. 341
in them, since it is by their wisdom and their danger that we
can enjoy both the republic and also our own private posses-
sions. The power of eloquence also is no doubt valuable and
full of dignity, and it has often been of influence in the elec-
;tion of a consul to be able by wisdom and oratory to sway the
minds of the senate and the people, and those who decide on
affairs. A consul is required who may be able sometimes to
repress the madness of the tribunes, who may be able to bend
the excited populace, who may resist corruption. It is not
strange, i^ on account of this fiiculty, even men who were not
nobly bom have often obtained the consulship ; especially
when this same quality procures a man great gratitude, and
the firmest Mendship, and the greatest zeal in his behalf; but
of all this there is nothing, 0 Sulpicius, in your profession.
First of all, what dignity can there be in so limited a
science? For they are but small matters, conversant chiefly
about single letters and punctuation between words. Secondly,
if in the time of our ancestors there was any inclination to
marvel at that study of yours, now that all your mysteries
are revealed, it is wholly despised and disregarded. At one
time few men knew whether a thing might be lawfully done
or not; for men ordinarily had no records; those were pos-
sessed of great power who were consulted, so that even days
for consultation were begged of them beforehand, as from the
Chaldean astrologers. A certain notary was found, by name
Onseus Flavins, who could deceive * the most wary, and who
set the people records to be learnt by heart each day, and
who pilfered their own learning from the profoundest lawyers.
So they, being angry because they were afraid, lest, when
their daily course of action was divulged and imderstood,
people would be able to proceed by law without their assist-
ance, adopted a sort of cipher, in order to make their presence
necessary in every cause.
XII. When this might have been well transacted thus —
"The Sabine farm is mine." "No; it is mine:" — ^then a
trial; they would not have it so. "The fiurm," says he,
" which is in the territory which is called Sabine :" — ^verbose
enough — ^well, what nextl " That ferm, I say, is mine ac-
cording to the rights of Roman citizens.*' What then ? — *^ and
> The Latin strictly is, "pierce the eyes of ravens." It was a prover-
bial expression.
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342 CICERO'S ORATIONS.
therefore I summon you according to law, seizing you by the
hand"
The man of whom the field was demanded did not know
how to answer one who was so talkatively litigious. The same
lawyer goes across, like a Latin flute-player, — says he,' " In
the place from whence you summoned me having seized me
by the hand, from thence I recal you there." In the mean-
time, as to the praetor, lest he should think himself a fine
fellow and a fortunate one, and himself say something of his
own accord, a form of words is composed for him also, absurd
in other ppints, and especially in this : " Each of them being
alive and being present, I say that that is the way." " Enter
on the way." That wise man was at hand who was to show
them the way. "Eetum on your path." They returned
with the same guide. These things, I may well suppose,
appeared ridiculous to full-grown men ; that men when they
have stood rightly and in their proper place should be ordered
to depart, in order that they might immediately return again
to the place they had left. Everything was tainted with the
same childish folly. " When I behold you in the power of
the law." And this, — " But do you say this who claim the
right 1 '\ And while all this was made a mystery o^ they who
had the key to the mystery were necessarily sought after by
men; but as soon as these things were revealed, and were
bandied about and sifted in men's hands, they were found to
be thoroughly destitute of wisdom, but very full of fraud
and folly.
For though many things have been excellently settled by
the laws, yet most of them have been depraved and corrupted
by the genius of the lawyers. Our ancestors determined that
all women, on account of the inferiority of their understand-
ing, should be imder the protection of trustees. These men
have found out classes of trustees, whose power is subordinate
to that of the women. "Die one party did not wish the
domestic sacrifices to be abolished in femilies ; by the in-
genuity of the others old men were found to marry by the
form wdled coemptio,* for the sake of getting rid of these
^ Coemptio was " a ceremony of marriage consisting in a mock sale,
whereby the bride and bridegroom sold themselves to each other."
Biddle in voce. " Coemptio was effected by mandpcUto, and conse-
quently the wife was in mancipio.**— Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 603, § v.,
v. Marriage, (Roman.)
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FOR L. MUEENA. 343
sacred ceremonies. Lastly, in every part of the civil law they
neglected equity itself, but adhered to the letter of the law; as
for instance, because in somebody's books they found the
name of Caia, they thought that all the women who had
married by coemptio were called Caias. And that often appears
marvellous to me, that so many men of such ability should
now for so many years have been unable to decide whether
the proper expressions to use be the day after to-morrow or
the third day, a judge or an arbiter, a cause or a proceeding.
XIII. Therefore, as I said before, the dignity of a consul
has never been consistent with that science; being one con-
sisting wholly of fictitious and imaginary formulas. And its
right to public gratitude was even much smaller. For that
which is open to every one, and which is equally accessible to
me and to my adversary, cannot be considered as entitled to
any gratitude. And therefore you have now, not only lost
the hope of conferring a favour, but even the compliment
that used to be paid to you by men asking your permission
to consult you. No one can be considered wise on accoimt
of his proficiency in that knowledge which is neither of any
use at all out of Bome, nor at Rome either during the vaca-
tions. Nor has any one any right to be considered skilful in
law, because there cannot be any difference between men in a
branch of knowledge with which they are all acquainted.
And a matter is not thought the more difficult for being con-
tained in a very small number of very intelligible documents.
Therefore, if you excite my anger, though I am excessively
busy, in three days I will profess myself a lawyer. In truth,
all that need be said about the written law is contained in
written books ; nor is there anything written with such pre-
cise accuracy, that I cannot add (i,3i the formula, " which is
the matter at present in dispute." If you answer what you
ought, you will seem to^ave made the same answer as Ser-
vius; if you make any other reply, you will seem to be
acquainted with and to know how to handle disputed points.
Wherefore, not only is the military gloiy which you slight
to be preferred to your formulas and legal pleas ; but even
the habit of speaking is for superior, as regards the attain-
ment of honours, to the profession to the practice of which
you devote yourself. And therefore many men appar to me
to have preferred this at first ; but afterwards, being unable
to attain eminence in this profession, they have descended to
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344 Cicero's orations.
the oiher. Just as men say, when talking of Greek practi-
tioners, that those men are flute-players who cannot become
harp-players, so we see some men, who have not been able
to make orators, turn to the study of the law. There is
great labour in the practice of oratory. It is an important
business, one of great dignity, and of most exceeding influ-
' * ence. In truth, from you lawyers men seek some degree of
advantage ; but from those who are orators they seek actual
safety. In the next place, your replies and your decisions are
constantly overturned by eloquence, and cannot be made firm
except by the advocacy of the orator ; in which if I had made
any great proficiency myself, I should be more sparing while
speaking in its praise ; but at present I am saying nothing
about myself, but only about diose men who either are or
have been great in oratory.
XIV. There are two occupations which can place men in
the highest rank of dignity ; one, that of a general, the other,
that of an accomplished orator. For by the latter the orna-
ments of peace are preserved, by the former the dangers of
war are repelled. But the other virtues are of great import-
ance from their own intrinsic excellence, such as justice, good
feith, modesty, temperance ; and in these, 0 Servius, all men
know that you are very eminent But at present I am speak-
ing of those pursuits calculated to aid men in the attainment
of honours, and not about the intrinsic excellency of each
pursuit For all those occupations are dashed out of our
hands at once, the moment the slightest new commotion
begins to have a warlike soimd. In truth, as an ingenious
poet and a very admirable author says, the moment there is
a mention of battle, " away is driven" not only your grandi-
loquent pretences to prudence, but even that mistress of all
things, "wisdom. Everything is done by violence. The
' orator,** not only he who is troublesome in speaking, and
' garrulous, but even " the good orator is despised ; the horrid
soldier is loved.*' But as for your profession, that is trampled
under foot; " men seek their rights not by law, but hand to
hand by the sword,'* says he.
And if that be the case, then I think, 0 Sulpicius, the
forum must yield to the camp ; peace must yield to war, the
pen to the sword, and the shade to the sun. That, in £etct,
must be the first thing in the city, by means of which the city
itself is the first of all cities. But Cato is busy proving that
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FOR L. MUBENA. 3i5
we are making too much of all these things in our speech ;
and that we have forgotten that that Mithridatic war was
carried on against nothing better than women. However,
my opinion is very different, 0 judges ; and I will say a little
on that subject ; for my cause does not depend on that.
For if all the wars which we have carried on against the
Greeks are to be despised, then let the triumph of Marcus
Curius over king Pyrrhus be derided ; and that of Titus
Flamininus over Philip ; and that of Marcus Fulvius over the
jEtolians; and that of Lucius Paullus over king Perses ; and
that of Quintus Metellus over the false Philip ; and that of
Lucius Mummius over the Corinthians. But, if all these wars
were of the greatest importance, and if our victories in them
were most acceptable, then why are the Asiatic nations and
that Asiatic enemy despised by you 1 But, from our records
of ancient deeds, I see that the Roman people carried on a .
most important war with Antiochus ; the conqueror in which
war, Lucius Scipio, who had already gained great glory when
acting in conjimction with his brother Pubhus, assumed the
same honour himself by taking a surname from Asia, as his
brother did, who, having subdued Africa, paraded his conquest
by the assumption of the name of Africanus. And in that
war the renown of your ancestor Marcus Cato was very con-
spicuous ; but he, if he was, as I make no doubt that he was,
a man of the same character as I see that you are, would
never have gone to that war, if he had thought that it was
only going to be a war against women. Nor would the senate
have prevailed on Pubhus Africanus to go as heutenant to his
brother, when he himself a Httle while before, having forced
Hannibal out of Italy, having driven him out of Africa, and
having crushed the power of Carthage, had delivered the
republic from the greatest dangers^ if that war had not been
considered an important and formidable war.
XV. But if you diHgently consider what the power of
Mithridates was, and what his exploits were, and what sort of
a man he was himself you will in truth prefer this king to
all the kings with whom the Boman people has ever waged
war ; — a man whom Lucius Sylla, — ^not a very inexperienced
general, to say the least of it, — at the head of a numerous and
powerfiil army, after a severe battle, allowed to depart having
made peace with him, though he had overrun all Asia with
war : whom Lucius Murena, my chent's father, after having
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346 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
warred against him with the greatest vigour and vigilance,
left greatly checked indeed, but not overwhelmed: a king,
who, having taken several years to perfect his system and to
strengthen his warlike resources, became so powerful and
enterprising that he thought himself able to unite the Atlantic
to the Black Sea, and to combine the forces of Sertorius with
his own. And when two consuls had been sent to that war,
with the view of one pursuing Mithridates, and the other
protecting Bithynia, the disasters which befel one of them by
land and sea greatly increased the power and reputation of
the king. But the e^tploits of Lucius LucuUus were such"
that it is impossible to mention any war which was more im-
portant, or in which greater abilities and valour were dis-
played. For when the violence of the entire war had broken
against the walls of Cyzicus, and as Mithridates thought that
he should find that city the door of Asia, and that, if that
were once broken down and forced, the whole province would
be open to him, everything was so managed by Lucullus
that the city of our most faithftd allies was defended, and all
the forces of the king were wasted away by the length of the
siege. What more need I say? Do you think that that
naval battle at Tenedos, when the enemy's fleet were hasten-
ing on with rapid course and \mder most eager admirals
towards Italy, fuU of hope and courage, was a trifling engage-
ment— an insignificant contest ? I will say nothing of battles ;
I pass over the sieges of towns. Being at length expelled
firom his kingdom, still his wisdom and his influence were so
great, that, combining his forces with those of the king of
Armenia, he reappeared with new armies and new resources
of every kind.
XVI. And if it were my business now to speak of the
achievements of our army and of our general, I might
mention many most important battles. But that is not the
present question. This I do say : — If this war, and this
enemy, — ^if that king was a proper objiect for contempt, the
senate and Roman people would not have thought it one to
be imdertaken with such care, nor would they have carried it
on for so many years, nor would the glory of Lucullus 'be as
great as it is. Nor would the Roman people have entrusted
the care of putting a finishing stroke to it to Cnseus Pom-
peius ; though of all his battles, numberless as they are, that
appears to me to have b^n the most desperate and to have
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FOB L. MUBENA. 347
been maintained on both sides with the greatest vigour, which
he fought against the king. And when Mithridates had es-
caped from that battle, and had fled to the Bosphorus, a place
which no army could approach, still, even in the extremity of
his fortunes, and as a fugitive, he retained the name of a
king. Therefore, Pompeius himself having taken possession
of his kingdom, having driven the enemy away from all his
coasts, and from all his usual places of resort, still thought
that so much depended on his single life,xthat though, by his
victory, he had got possession of everything which he had
possessed, or had approached, or even had hoped for, still he
did not think the war entirely over till he drove him from life
also. And do you, 0 Cato, think lightly of this man as an
enemy, when so many generals warred against him for so
many years, with so long a series of battles 1 when, though
driven out and expelled from his kingdom, his life was still
thought of such importance, that it was not till the news
arrived of his death, that we thought the war over? We then
say in defence of Lucius Murena, that as a lieutenant in this
war he approved himself a man of the greatest coinage, of
singular military skill, and of the greatest perseverance ; and
that all his conduct at that time gave him no less a title
to obtain the consulship than this forensic industry of ours
gave us. V
XVII. "But in the standing for the prsBtorship, Servius
was elected first." Are you going (as if you were aiguing on
some written bond) to contend with the people tha^, what-
ever place of honour they have once given any one, that
same rank they are bound to give him in all other honours 1
For what sea, idiat Euripus do you think exists, which is
liable to such commotions, — ^to such great and various agita-
tions of waves, as the storms and tides by which the comitia
are influenced ? The interval of one day, — the lapse of one
night,— often throws everything into confusion. The slightest
breeze of rumour sometimes changes the entire opinions of
people. Often, even, everything is done without any apparent
cause, in a manner entirely at variance with the opinions that
have been expressed, or that, indeed, are really entertained ;
so that sometimes the people marvels that that has been done
which has been done, as if it were not itself that has done it.
Nothing is more uncertain than the common people, — ^nothing
more obscure than men's wishes, — ^nothing more treacherous
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348 CI0£RO*B ORiLTION&
than the whole nature of the comitia. Who expected that
Lucius Philippus, a man of the greatest abilities, and in-
dustry, and popularity, and nobleness of birth, could be
beaten by Marcus Herennius? Who dreamt of Quintus
Catulus, a man eminent for all the politer virtues, for wisdoni
and for integrity, being beaten by Cnaeus Mallius? or Marcus
Scaurus, a man of the highest chaiacter, an illustrious citizen,
• a most intrepid senator, by Quintus Maximus? Not only
none of all these things were expected to happen, but not
even when they had happened could any one possibly make
out why they had happened. For as storms arise, often being
heralded by some weU-known token in the heavens, but often
also quite unexpectedly from no imaginable reason, but from
some unintelligible cause ; so in the popular tempests of the
comitia you may often imderstand by what signs a storm was
first raised, but often, too, the cause is so obs«ure, that the
tempest appears to have been raised by chance.
XVIII. Buj; yet, if an account of them must be given,
two qualities were particularly missed in the prsetorship, the
existence of which ill Murena now was of the greatest use to
him in standing for the consulship : one was the expectation
J of a largess, which had got abroad through some rumour, and
'' owing to the zeal and conversation of some of his competitors ;
the other, that those men who had been witnesses of all his
liberality and virtue in the province and in the discharge ot
his office as lieutenant, had not yet left Eome. Fortune
reserved each of these advantages for him, to aid him in his
application for the consulship. For the army of Lucius
Lucullus, which had come hither for his triumph, was also
present at the comitia in aid of Lucius Murena, and his
prcetorship afforded a most splendid proof of his liberality,
of which there was no mention when he was standing for the
prsetorship. Do these things appear to you trifling supports
and aids towards obtaining the consulship ? Is the good-will
of the soldiery a trifle ? who are both intrinsically powerful
through their own numbers, and also by their influence
among their connexions, and who in declaring a consul have
great weight among the entire Roman people. Are the votes
of the army a trifle ? No ; for it is generals, and not interpr^
ters of words, who are elected at the consular comitia. Most
influential, then, is such a speech as this, — " He refreshed
me when I was wounded. He gave me a share of the plunder.
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FOB L. ICXTBBNA. 349
He was the general when we took that camp — ^when we fought
that battle. He never imposed harder work on the solder
than he imderwent himself He was as fortunate as he is
brave." What weight do you not suppose this must have to
gaining a reputation and good- will among men 1 Indeed, if^
there is a sort of superstition in the comitia, that up to this
time the omen to be drawn from the vote of the prerogative*
tribe has always proved true, what wonder is there that in such
a meeting the reputation of good fortune and such discourse
as this has had the greatest weight 1
XIX. But if you think these things trifling, though they
are most important ; and if you prefer the votes of these
quiet citizens to those of the soldiers ; at all events, you
cannot think lightly of the beauty of the games exhibited by
this man, and the magnificence of his theatrical spectacles ;
and these things were of great use to him in this last contest
For why need I tell you that the people and the great mass of
ignorant men are exceedingly taken with games 1 It is not
very strange. And that is a sufficient reason in this case ;
for the comitia are the comitia of the people and the multi-
tude, li^ then, the magnificence of games is a pleasure to
the people, it is no wonder that it was of great service to
Lucius Murena with the people. But if we ourselves, who,
from our constant business, have but little time for amuse-
ment, and who are able to derive many pleasures of another
sort from our business itself are still pleased and interested
by exhibitions of games, why should you marvel at the
ignorant multitude being so ? Lucius Otho,* a brave man,
and an intimate friend of mine, restored not only its dignity,
but also its pleasure to the equestrian order ; and, therefore,
this law which relates to the games is the most acceptable of
all laws, because by it that most honourable order of men is
restored not only to its honours, but also to the enjoyment of
its amusements. . Games, then, believe me, are a great delight
to men, even to those who are ashamed to own it, and not to
* In the comitia centuriata the people voted in their centuries ; the
order in which the centuries voted was decided by lot, and that which
gave its vote first was called the centuria prcerogcUivcu The question
of a tribua pr<Erogativ€t^ is a more disputed point ; but on this see
Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 997, v. Tri^us, (Roman.)
* This refers to the law of Lucius Roscius Otho, (called Roscia Lex
by Horace,) by which the fourteen rows of seats next to those of the
senators were reserved for the knights.
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350 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
those only who confess it^ as I found to be the case m my con-
test for the consulship ; for we also had a theatrical representa-
tion as our competitor. But if I who, as sedile, had exhibited
those shows of games^ was yet influenced by the games ex-
hibited by Antonius, do you not suppose that that very silver
stage exhibited by this man, which you laugh at, was a serious
rival to you, who, as it happened, had never given any games
at all ? But, in truth, let us allow that these advantages are
all equal, — ^let exertions displayed in the forum be allowed to
be equal to mihtary achievements, — ^let the votes of the quiet
citizens be granted to be of equal weight with those of the
soldiers, — let it be of equal assistance to a man to have
exhibited the most magnificent games, and never to have
exhibited any at all ; what then ) Do you think that in the
prfiBtorship itself there was no difference between your lot
and that of my client Murena 1
XX. His department was that which we and all your Mends
desired for you; that, namely, of deciding the law; a buaness
in which the importance of the business transacted procures
great credit for a man, and the administration of justice earns
him popularity ; for which department a wise prcetor, such as
Murena was, avoids giving offence by impartiality in his
decisions, and conciliates good-will by his good temper in
hearing the cases brought before him. It is a very creditable
employment, and very well adapted to gain a man the con-
sulship, being one in which the praise of justice, integrity and
aflfe-bility is crowned at the last by the pleasure of the games
which he exhibita What department was it that your lot
gave you 1 A disagreeable and odious one. That of inquiry
into peculation, pregnant on the one side with the tears "and
mourning apparel of the accused, full on the other side of
imprisonment and informers. In that department of justice
judges are forced to act against their will, are retained by
force contrary to their inchnation. The clerk is hated, the
whole body is impopular. The gratifications given by Sylla
are found faxHi with. Many brave men, — indeed, a consider-
able portion of the city is offended ; damages are assigned
with severity. The man who is pleased with the decision
soon forgets it ; he who loses his cause is sure to remember
it. Lastly, you would not go to your province. I cannot
find fiiult with that resolution in you, which, both as prsetor
and consul, I have adopted in my own case. But still Lucius
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FOR L. MUBBNA. 351
Murena's conduct in his province procured him the affection
of many influential men, and a great accession of reputation.
On his road he held a levy of troops in Unibria. The re-
public enabled him to display his liberality, which he did so
effectually as to engage in his interest many tribes which are
connected with the municipalities of that district. And in
Gaul itself, he contrived by his equity and diligence to enable
many of our citizens to recover debts which they had entirely
despaired of. In the meantime you were living at Rome,
ready to help your finends. I confess that — ^but still recol-
lect this, that the inclinations of some fiiends are often
cooled towards those men by whom they see that provinces
are despised.
XXI. And since 1 have proved, O judges, that in this con-
test for the consulship Murena had the same claims of worth
that Sulpicius had, accompanied with a very different fortune
as respects the business of their respective provinces, I will
say more plainly in what particular my Mend Servius was
inferior; and I will say those things while you are now hearing
me, — now that the time of the elections is over, — ^which I have
often said to him by himseK before the affair was settled. I
oft^n told you, 0 Servius, that you did not know how to
stand for the consulship; and, in respect to those very
matters which I saw you conducting and advocating in a
brave and magnanimous spirit, I often said to you that you
• appeared, to me to be a brave senator rather than a wise
candidate. For, in the first place, the terrors and threats of
accusations which you were in the habit of employing every
day, are rather the part of a fearless man ; but they have an
unfavourable, effect on the opinion of the people as regards a
man's hopes of getting anything from them, and they even
disarm the zeal of his friends. Somehow or other, this is
always the case; and it has been noticed, not in one or two
instances only, but in many; so that the moment a candi-
date is seen to turn his attention to provocations, he is sup-
posed to have given up all hopes of his election.
What, then, am I saying 1 Do I mean that a man il" not
to prosecute another for any injury which he may have
received? Certainly I mean nothing of the sort. But the
times for prosecuting and for standing for the consulship are
different. I consider that a candidate for any office, especially
for the consulship, ought to come down into the forum and
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352 ^ CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
into the Campus Martius with great hopes, with great courage,
and with great resources. But I do not like a candidate to
be looking about for evidence — conduct which is a sure fore-
runner of a repulse. I do not like his being anxious to
marshal witnesses rather than voters. I do not fancy threats
instead of caresses, — declamation where there should be salu-
tation; especially as, according to the new £ishion now
existing, all candidates visit the houses of nearly all the
citizens, and from their coimtenances men form their conjec-
tures as to what spirits and what probabilities of success each
candidate has. " Do you see how gloomy that man looks 1
how dejected ? He is out of spirits ; he thinks he has no
chance ; he has laid down his arms." Then a report gets
abroad, — '*Do you know that he is thinking of a prosecution?
He is seeking for evidence against his competitors; he is
hunting for witnesses. I shall vote for some one else, as he
knows that he has no chance." The most intimate friends of
such candidates as that are dispirited and disarmed, they
abandon all anxiety in the matter, — they give up a business
which is so manifestly hopeless, or else they reserve all their
labour and influence to countenance their friend in the trial,
and prosecution which he is meditating.
XXII. And, besides all this, the candidate himself cannot
devote his whole thoughts, and care, and attention, and dili-
gence to his own election ; for he has also in his mind the
thoughts of his prosecution — ^a matter of no small importance,
but in truth of the very greatest. For it is a very serious
business to be preparing measures by which to deprive a man,
especially one who is not powerless or without resources, of
his rights as a citizen ; one who is defended both by himself
and by his friend, — ay, and perhaps also by strangers. For
we all of us naturally hasten to save any one from danger ;
and, if we are not notoriously enemies to them, we tender,
even to utter strangers, when menaced by danger affect-
ing their station as citizens, the services and zeal which
are strictly speaking due only to the causes of our friends.
On which account I, who know by experience the troubles
attending on standing for office, on defending and accusing
prisoners, consider that the truth in respect of each business
stands thus, — that in standing for an office, eagerness is the
chief thing ; in defending a man, a regard for one's duty is
the principal thing shown ; in accusing a man, the labour is
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<. FOR L. MURENA. 353
greatest And therefore I say decidedly that it is quite im-
possible for the same man to do justice properly to the part
of an accuser and a candidate for the consulship. Few can
play either part well ; no one can do justice to botL Did
yoUy when you turned aside out of the course prescribed for
you as a candidate, and when you had transferred your atten-
tion to the task of prosecuting, think that you could fulfil
all the requirements of both 1 You were greatly mistaken if <
you did ; for what day was there after you once entered on
that prosecution, that you did not devote the whole of it to
that occupation)
XXIII. You demanded a law about bribery, though there
was no deficiency of laws on that matter, for there was the
Calpumian law, framed with the greatest severity. Your
inclinations and your wish procured compliance with your
demand; Wt the whole of that law might perhaps have armed
' your accusation, if you, had had a guilty defendant to prose-
cute; but it has been of great injury to you as a candidate.
A more severe punishment for the common people was de-
manded by your voice. The minds of the lower orders were
agitated. The punishment of an exile was demanded in the
case of any one of our order being convicted. The senate
granted it to your request; but still it was with no good will
that they established a more severe condition for our common
fortunes at your instigation. Punishment was imposed on
any one who made the excuse of 'illness. ' The inclinations of
many men vfere alienated by this step, as by it they were
forc^ either to labour to the prejudice of their health, or else
through the distress of illness they were compelled to abandon
the other enjoyments of life. What, then, are we to say of
this 1 Who passed this law 1 He, who, in so doing, acted in
obedience to the senate, and to your wish. He, in short,
passed it to whom it was not of the slightest personal advan-
tage. Do you think that those proposals which, with my
most wiUing consent, the senate rejected in a very full house,
were but a slight hindrance to you ? You demanded the con-
cision of the votes of all the centuries, \he exten^on of the
Manilian law,^ the equalisation of aU interest, and dignity, and
* This was not the Manilian law, in support of which Cicero spoke, to
confer the command in Asia on Pompeius ; bat a law enacting that the
votes should be counted without any regaixl to the centuries in which
thej were giyen ; but this law was repealed soon after its enactment
. TOL. IL A A
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354 CICBBO'S OKA.TIO^:fi^
of all the sufi&agea Honourable menu men of influenoe in
their neighbouriioods and municipalities, were indignant that
such a man should contend for the abolition of all degrees in
dignity and popularity. You also wished to have judges
selected by the accuser at his pleasure, the effect of which
would have been, that the secret dislikes of the citizens,
which are at present confined to isilent grumblings, would have
broken out in attacks on the fortunes of every eminent man.
All these measures were strengthening your hands as a
prosecutor, but weakening your chance as a candidate. And
by them all a violent blow was struck at your hopes of suc-
oess, as I warned you ; and many very severe things were said
about it by that most able and most eloquent man, Hortensius,
owing to which my task of speaking now is the more difficult;
as, alter both he had spoken before me, and also Marcus
Crassus, a man of the greatest dignity, and industry, pnd skill
as an orator, I, coming in at the end, was not to plead-some
part of the cause, but to say with respect to the whole matter
whatever I thought advisable. Therefore I am forced to recur
to the same ideas, and to a great extent, 0 judges, I have to
contend with a feeling of satiety on your part.
XXIV. But still, 0 Servius, do you not see that you com-
pletely lay the axe to the root of your chance as a candidate,
when you give the Eoman people cause for apprehension that
Catiline might be made consul through your neglect, and, I
may almost say, abandonment of your canvass, while you
were intent on your prosecution 1 In truth, men saw that
you were himting about for evidence; that you yourself
looked gloomy, your friends out of spirits; they noticed
your visits, your inquiries after proofe, your privy meetings
with your witnesses, your conferences with your junior counsel;
all which matters are certainly apt to make the coimtenance
of a candidate look darker. Meantime they saw Catiline
cheerful and joyous, accompanied by a band of youths, with
a body-guard of informers and assassins, elated by the hopes
which he placed in the soldiers, and, as he himself said, by
the promises of my colleagues ; surrounded, too, witli a nu-
merous^body of colonists from Arretium and Faesulse — a crowd
made conspicuous by the presence of men of a very different
sort in it, men who had been ruined by the disasters in the
time of Sylla. His own countenance was full of fury ; his
eyes glared with wickedness ; his discourse breathed nothing
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FOR L. MUBENA. Z55
but arrogance. You might have thought that he had ajssured
himself of the consulship, and that he had got it locked up
at home. Murena he despised. Sulpicius he considered ack
Ins prosecutor, not as a competitor. He threatened him with
violence ; he threatened the republic.
XXV. And I need not remind you with what terror all
good men were seized in consequence of these occurrences,
and how entirely they would all have despaired of the re- ^
pubHc if he had been made consul. All tins you yourselves
recollect; for you remember, when the expressions of that
wicked gladiator got abroad, which he was said to have used
at a meeting at his own house, when he said that it was im-
possible for any faithful defender of the miserable citizens to
be found, except a man who was himself miserable; that men
in an embarrassed and desperate condition ought not to trust
the promises of men of a flourishing and fortimate estate ;
and therefore that those who were desirous to replace what
they had spent, and to recover what they had lost, had better
consider what he himself owed, what he possessed, and what .
he would dare to do; that that man ought to be very fearless
and thoroughly overwhelmed by misfortune, who was to be
the leader and standard-bearer of unfortunate men. Then,
therefore, when these things had been heard, you recollect ,
that a resolution of the senate was passed, on my motion, s
that the comitia should not be held the next day, in order
that we might be able to discuss these matters in the senate. '"^^
Accordingly, the next day,* in a full meeting of the senate, I
addressed Catiline himself, and desired him, if he could, to
give some explanation of these reports which had been brought >
to me. And he — for he was not much addicted to disguising
his intentions— did not attempt to clear himself, but openly,
avowed and adopted the statements. For he said then, that
there were two bodies of the republic, — ^the one weak With a
weak head, the other powerful without a head, — ^and that, as
this last had deserved well of him, it should never want a
head as long as he lived. The whole senate groaned at hear-
ing itself addressed in such language, and passed a resolution
not severe enough for such unworthy conduct ; for some of
them were against too rigorous a resolution, because they had
no fear; and some, because they had a great deal. Then he
rushed forth from the senate, triumphing and exulting, — a
man who never ought to have been allowed to leave it alive,
aa2
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356 oiCEBo'a orations.
especially as that very same man in the same place had made
answer to Cato, tlmt gallant man who was threatening him
with a prosecution, a few days before, that if any fire were
kindled against his own fortunes, he would put it out, not
with water, tut by the general ruin.
XXVI. Being influenced then by these &cts, and knowing
that men who were already associated in a conspiracy were
being brought down by Catiline into the Campus Miartius,
arm^ with swords, I myself descended into the campus with
a guard of brave men, and with that broad and shining breast-
plate, not in order to protect me, (for I knew that Catiline
would aim at my head and neck, not at my chest or body,)
but in order that all good men inight observe it, and, wh^i
they saw their consul in fear and in danger, might, as they
did, throng together for my assistance and protection. There-
fore, as, 0 Servius, men thought you very remiss in prose-
cuting the contest, and saw Catiline inflamed with hope and
desire, all who wished to repel that pest from the republic
immediately joined the party of Murena. And in the con-
sular comitia the sudden inclination of men's feelings is often
of great weight, especially as, in this case, it took the direction
of a very gallant man, who was assisted by many other con-
current aids in his application for the office. He was bom of
a most honourable father and ancestors ; he had passed his
youth in a most modest manner; he had discharged the
office of a lieutenant with great credit ; he had been praetor,
as such he had been approved as a judge ; he had been popular
through his liberality ; he had been highly honoured in his
province ; he had been very diligent in his canvass, and had
carried it on so as neither to give way if any one threatened
him, nor to threaten any one himself. Can we wonder that
the sudden hope which Catiline now entertained of obtaining
the^jDonsulship was a great assistance to this man ?
The third topic wlSch I have got to speak about refers to
the charge of bribery ; which has been already entirely re-
futed by those who have spoken before me, but which must
still be discussed by me, since such is the will of Murena.
And while speaking on this point, I will reply to what Postu-
mius, my own intimate friend, a most accomplished man,
baa said about the trials of agents, and about sums of money
which he asserts have been found ; and to what Servius Sul-
];>iciu8^ that able and virtuous young' man, has said about the
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FOR L. HURBNA. 357
oeiituries of the knights ; and to what Marcos Gato, a man
eminent in every kind of virtue, has said about his own accu-
sation, about the resolution of the senate, and about the
republic in generftL
XXVIL But first of all I will say a little, whioi has just
occurred to me, about the hard fortune of Lucius Murena.
For I have often before now, O judges, judging both by the
miseries of others, and by my own daily cares and labours^
considered those men fortimate, who, being at a distance from
the pursuits of ambition, have addicted themselves to ease and
tranquillity of life ; and now Especially I am so affected by
these serious and unexpected dangers of Lucius Murena^ that
I am unable adequately to express my pity for the common
condition of all of us, or for hiis particular state and fortune ;
who while, after an uninterrupted series of honours attained
by his £unily and his ancestors, he was endeavouring to mount
one step higher in dignity, has incurred the danger of losing
both the honours bequeathed to him by his forefiaithers, and
' those too which have been acquired by himself and now, on
account of his pursuit of this new honoiir, is brought into
^e danger of losing his ancient fortune also. And as these
aire weighty considerations, 0 judges, so is this the n^ost
serious matter of all, that he has men for accusers who,
instead of proceeding to accuse him on account of their
private enmity against him, have become his personal enemies^
being carried away by their zeal for their accusation. For,
to say nothing of Servius Sulpicius, who, I am aware, is in-
fluenced not by any wrong done by Lucius Murena^ but only
by the party spirit engendered by the contest for honour, his
fiither^s friend, Cnseus Postumius, is his accuser, an old neigh-
bour and intimate friend of his own, as he says himself; who
has mentioned many reasons for his intimacy with him, while
he has not been able to mention one for any enmity towards
him. Servius Sulpicius accuses him, the companion of his
son, — he, by whose genius all the friends of his fisither ought to
be only the more defended. ' Marcus Cato accuses him, who,
though he has never been in any matter whatever at variance
with Murena, yet was bom in this city under such circum-
stances that his power and genius ought to be a protection to
many who were even entire strangers to him, and ought to
be the ruin of hardly any personal enemy.
In the first instance then I will reply to Cnseus Postumiuc^
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B58^ diCEBO'S ORATIONS.
who, somehow or other, I know not how, while a candidate for
the prsetorship, appears to me to be a straggler into the course
marked out for the candidates for the consulship, as the
horse of a vaulter might escape into the course marked out
for the chariot races. And if there is no fiiult whatever to be
found with his competitors, then he has made a great con-
cession to their worth in desisting from his canvass. But if
any one of them has committed bribery, then he must look
for some friend who will be more inclined to prosecute an
injury done to another than one done to himself
******
XXVIII. I come no^w to Marcus Cato, who is the main-
stay and prop of the whole prosecution ; who is, however, so
zealous and vehement a prosecutor, that I am much more
afraid of the weight of his name, than of his accusation. And
with respect to this accuser, 0 judges, first of all I wifl entreat
you not to let Gate's dignity, nor your expectation of his
tribuneship, nor the high reputation and virtue of his whole
life, be any injury to Lucius Murena. Let not all the honours
of Marcus Cato, which he has acquired in order to be able to
assist many men, be an injury to my client alone. Publius
Afiicanus had been twice consul, and had destroyed those two
terrors of this empire, Carthage and Numantia, when he pro-
secuted Lucius Cotta. He was a man of the most splendid
eloquence, of the greatest good feith, of the purest integrity ;
his authority "was as great almost as that of the Roman
people itself, in that empire which had been mainly saved by
his means. I have often heard old men say that this very
. extraordinarily high character of the accuser was of the
greatest service to Lucius Cotta. Those wise men who then
were the judges in that cause, did not like any one to be
defeated in a trial, if he was to appear overwhelmed only by
the excessive influence of his adversary. What more shall I
say ] Did not the Roman peopl6 deliver Sergius Galba (the
fact is preserved in the recollection of every one) from your
grandfether, that most intrepid and prosperous man, Marcus
Cato, who was zealously seeking his ruin 1 At all times in
this city the whole people, and also the judges, wise men,
looking far into futurity, have resisted the overweening power
of prosecutors. I do n©t like an accuser bringing his per-
soml power, or any predominant influence, or his omx
eminent authority, or his own excessive popularity, into a
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FOB L. MUBENA. 359
court of justice. Let all these things, have weight to ensure
"tfie^safety of the innocent, to aid the weak, to succour the
unfortunate. But in a case where the danger and ruin of
citizens may ensue, let them be rejected. For if perchance
any one should say that Cato would not have come forward
as an accuser if he had not previously made up his mind
about the justice of the cause, he will then be laying down
a most unjust law, 0 judges, and establishing a miserable
condition for men in their danger, if he thmks that the
opinion of an accuser is to have against a defendant the
weight of a previous investigation legally conducted.
XXIX. I, 0 Cato, do not venture to find fkoLt with your
intentions, by reason of my extraordinarily high opinion of
your virtue ; but in some particulars I may perhaps be able
slightly to amend and reform them. " You: are not very wrong,"
said an aged tutor to a very brave man ; " but if you are
wrong, I oan set you right." But I can say with the greatest
truth that you never do wrong, and that your conduct is
never such in any point as to need correction, but only such
as occasionally to require being guided a little. For nature
has herself formed you for honesty, and gravity, and modera-
tion, and magnanimity, and justice ; and for all the virtues
required to make a great and noble paan. To all these
qualities- are added an education not moderate, nor mild, but,
as it seems to me, a little harsh and severe, more so than
either truth or nature would permit. And since we are not
to address this speech either to an ignorant multitude, or to
any assembly of rustics, I will speak a little boldly about the
pursuits of educated men, which are both well known and
agreeable to you, 0 judges, and to me. Learn then, 0 judges,
that all these good qualities, divine and splendid as they are;,
which we behold in Marcus Cato, are his own peculiar attri-
butes. The qualities which we sometimes widi for in him,
are not all those which are implanted in a man by nature,
but some x>f them are such as are derived from education. , .
For there was once a man of the greatest genius, whose name
was Zeno, the imitators of whose example are called Stoics.
His opinions and precepts are of this sort : that a wise man
iis never influenced by interest ; never pardons any man's
fiiult ; that no one is merciful except a fool and a trifler ;
that it is not the part of a man to be moved or pacified by
entreaties; that wise men^ let them be ever so deformed, are
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360 ClOERO'S ORATIONS.
the only beautiful men; if they be ever such beggars, they
are the only rich men ; if they be in alaveiy, they are kingisL
And as for all of us who are not wise men, they call us run-
away slaves, exiles, enemies, lunatics. They say that all
ofifenoes are equal ; that every sin is an unpardonable crime ;
and that he does not commit a less crime who kills a cock, if
there was no need to do so, than the man who strangles his
fiither. They say that a wise man never feels uncertain on
any point, never repents of anything, is never deceived in
anything, and never alters his opinion.
XXX. All these opinions that most acute man, Marcos
Oato, having been induced by learned advocates of ^em, has
embraced ; and that, not for the sake of arguing about them,
as is the case with most men, but of living by them. Do
the PublicaDS ask for anything ? '' Take care that their in-
fluence has no weight" Do any suppliants, miserable and
^happy men, come to us ? '^ You will be a wicked and in-
^ffious man if you do anything from being influenced by
mercy.*' Does any one confess ^t he has done wrong, and
beg pardon for his wrong doing 1 f^ To pardon is a crime of
the deepe^ dye.'* — " But it is a trifling ofience." " All ofiences
are equal.^ You say something. " That is a fixed and unal-
terable principle." " You are influenced not by the foots, but
by your opinion." *^ A wise man never forms mere opinions."
^ You have made a mistake in some point." He thinks that
you are abusing him. — ^And in accordance with theae pdji-
dples of his are the following assertions : " I said in the
senate, that I would prosecute one of the candidates for the
oons]ilship." " You said that when you were angry.", /* A wise
man never is angryJ* '' But you said, it for some temporary
purpose." " It is the act," says he, " of a worthless man to
deceive by a lie ; it is a disgraceful act to alter one's opinion ;
to be moved by entreaties is wickedness ; to pity any one is an
enormity." But our philosophers, {tor I confess, 0 Cato, that
I too, in my youth, distrusting my own abilities, sought
assistance from learning,) our philosophers, I say, men of the
school of Plato and A^stotle, men of soberness and modera-
tion, say that private interest does sometimes have weight
even with a wise man. They say that it does become a virtuous
man to feel pity ; that there are different gradations of offences^
and different degrees of punishment appropriate to each;
tSmt^ man with every proper regard for firmness may pardon
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VOB Ii. HURENA. 361
offences ; that eyen the wise man himself has sometimes nothing
more than opinion to go upon, without absolute certaintj ; that
he is sometimes angry ; that he is sometimes influenced and
pacified by entreaty; tiiat he sometimes does change an opinion
which he maylmve expressed, when it is better to do so; that
he sometimes abandons his previous opinions altogether; and
that all his virtues are tempered by a certain moderation.
XXXI. If any chance, 0 Cato, had conducted, endowed
with your existing natural disposition, to those tutors^ you
would not indeed have been a better man than you are, nor a
braver one, nor more temperate, nor more just than you are,
(for that is not possible,) but you would have been a little
more inclined to lenity ; you woidd not, when you were not
induced by any enmity, or provoked by any personal injury,
accuse a most virtuous man, a man of the highest rank and
the greatest integrity ; you woidd consider diat as fortune
had entrusted the guardianship of the same year to you^ and
to Murena, that you were connected with him by some certain
political union ; and the severe things which you have said
in the senate you would either not have said, or you would
have guarded against their being applied to him, or you would
have interpreted them in the mildest sense. And even you
yourself, (at least that is my opinion and expectation,) excited
as you are at present by the impetuosity of your disposition, and
elated as you are both by the vigour of your natuxaLchacacter
and by your confidence in your own ability, and inflamed as
you are by your recent study of all these precepts^ will find
practice modify them, and time and increasing years soften
and himianise you. In truth, those tutors and teachers of
virtue, whom you think so much of, appear to me themselves
to have carried their definitions of duties somewhat further
than is agreeable to nature ; and it wotdd be better if, when
we had in theory pushed our principles to extremities, yet in
practice we stopped at what was expedient. " Forgive nothing."
Say rather, forgive some things, but not everything. " Do
nothing for the sake of private influence." Certainly i*esist
private influence when virtue and good fedth require you to do
so. " Do not be moved by pity." Certainly if it is to extin-
guish all impartiality ; nevertheless, there is some credit due
to humanity. " Abide by your own opinion." Very true^
unless some other sounder opinion convinces you. That great
^ Cato was tribime elect.
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362 GIOSBO'S OBATIONS.
Sdpio was a man of this sort, who had no objdbtion to do the
same thing that yon do ; to keep a most learned man, a man
of almost divine wisdom, in his house ; by whose conversation
and precepts, although they were the very same that you are
so fond of, he was nevertheless not made more severe, but (as
I have heard said by old men) he was rendered most mercifoL
And who was more mUd in his manners than Caius LseHus ?
who was more agreeable than he 1 (devoted to the same studies
as you;) who was more virtuous or more wise than he? I
might say the same of Lucius Philus, and of Caius Gallus ; but
I will conduct you now into your own house. Do you think
that there was any man more courteous, more agreeable; any
one whose conduct was more completely regulated by every
principle of virtue and politeness, than Cato, your great-grand-
&ther 1 And when you were speaking with truth and dignily of
his virtue, you said that you had a domestic example to imitate.
That indeed is an example set up for your imitation in your own
femily ; and the similarity of nature ought rather to influence
you who are descended from him than any one of us ; but still
that example is as much an object for my imitation as for
yours. But if you were to ad4 his courtesy and aSability to
your own wisdom and impartiality, I will not say that iliose
qualities which are now most excellent will be made intrinsically
better, but they will certainly be more agreeably seasoned.
XXXII. Wherefore, to return to the subject which I began
to speak of, take away the name of Cato out of the cause ;
remove and leave out of the question all mention of authority,
which in courts of justice ought either to have no influence at
all, or only influence to contribute to some one's safety ; and
discuss with me the charges themselve& What do you accuse
him of, Cato 1 What action of his is it that you bring before the
court 1 What is your charge 1 Do you accuse him of bribery?
I do not defend bribery. You blame me because you say I am
defending the very conduct which I brought in a law to punish.
I punished bribery, not innocence. And any real case of
bribery I will join you in prosecuting if youpleAsaj You have
said that a resolution of the senate was passed, on my motion,
" that if any men who had been bribed had gone to meet the
candidates, if any hired men followed them, if places were
given men to see the shows of gladiators according to their
tribes, and also, if dinnets were given to the common people,
that appeared to be a violation of the Calpumian law."
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FOB L. MUBBNA. 363
Therefore the senate decides that these things were done in
violation of the Calpimiian law if they were done at all ; it
decides what there is not the least occasion for, out of com-
plaisance for the candidates. For there is a great question
whether such things have been done or not That, if they have
been done, they were done in violation of the law, no one can
doubt. It is, therefore, ridiculous to leave that imcertain
which was doubtful, but to give a positive decision on that
point which can be doubtftd to no one. And that decree
is passed at the request of all the candidates ; in order that it
might be quite impos- ible to make out fipom the resolution of
the senate whose inter<^ts were consulted, or against whose in-
terests it was passed. Prove, then, that these actions have been
done by Lucius Murena ; and then I will grant-^ you that
they have been done in violation of the law.
XXXIII. " Many men went to meet him as he was depart-
ing from his province, when he was a candidate for the con-
sulship." That is a very usual thing to do. Who is there
whom people do not go out to meet on his return home?
" What a number of people they were." In the first place, if
I am not able to give you any exact account of it, what won-
der is it if many men did go out to meet such a naan on his
arrival, being a candidate fbr the consulship? If they had
not done so, it would have appeared much more strange.
What then 1 Suppose I were even to add, what there wouJd
be nothing unusual in, that many had been asked to gol
Would that be matter of accusation, or at all strange, that, in
a city in which we, when we are asked, often come to escort
the sons of even the lowest rank, almost before the night is
over, from the furthest part of the city, men should not mind
going at the third hour into the Campus Martins, especially
when they have been invited in the name of such a man as
^lyena ? What then 1 What if all the societies had come
to meet him, of which bodies many are sitting here as judges?
What if many men of oiu: own most honourable order had
come 1 What theni What if the whole of that most officious
body of candidates, which will not suffer any man to enter the
city except in an honourable mann», had come, or even our
prosecutor himself— if Postimiius had come to meet him with
a numerous crowd of his dependents ? What is there strange
in such a multitude? I say nothing of his clients, his neigh-
bours, his tribesmen, or the whole army of Lucullugi, which,
just at that time, had come to Rome to his triumph ; I say
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d64 0IC£BO*S ORATIONS.
this, that that crowd, paying that gratuitous mark of respect^
was never backward in paying respect not only to the merit
of any one, but even to his wishes.
" But a great many people foUowed huOt" Prove that it
was for hire, and I wUl admit that that was a crime : but if
the fact of hire be absent, what is there that you object to 1
XXXIV. « What need is there," says he, " of an escort 1 "
Are you asking me what is the need of that which we have
always availed ourselves of 9 Men of the lower orders have
only one opportunity of deserting kindness at the hands of
our order, or of requiting services, — ^namely, this one atten-
tion of escorting us when we are candidates for offices. For
it is neither possible, nor ought we or the Roman knights to
require them to escort the candidates to whom they are
attached for whole days together; but if our house is fre-
quented by them, if we are sometimes escorted to the forum,
^ we are honoured by their attendance for the distance of one
piazza, we then appear to be treated with all due observance
and respect ; and ihoee are the attentions of our poorer friends
who are not hindered by business, of whom numbers are not
wont to desert virtuous and beneficent men. Do not then,
0 Cato, deprive the lower class of men of this power of show-
ing their dutiful feelings; allow these men, who hope for
everything from us, to have something also themselves, w^ch
they may be able to give u& If they have nothing beyond
their own vote, that is but little ; since they have no interest
which they can exert in the votes of others. They themselves,
as they are accustomed to say, cannot plead for us, cannot
go bcJl for us, cannot invite us to their houses ; but they
ask all these things of us, and do not think that they can
requite the services which they receive from us by anything
but by their attentions of this sort Therefore they resisted
the Fabian law, which regulated the number of an escort, and
the resolution of the senate, which was passed in the consul-
ship of Lucius Csesar. For there is no punishment which
can prevent the r^ard shown by the poorer classes for this
description of attention. *' But spectacles were exhibited to
the people by their tribes, and crowds of the common people
were invited to dinner." Although this, 0 judges, was noE
done%by Murena at all, but done in accordance with aU
usage and precedent by his friends, still, being reminded of^
the fact, I recollect how many votes these investigations held
in the senate have lost us, 0 Servius. For what time was
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VOB Ii. MUBENA. 365
there ever, either within our own recollection or that of our
&thersy in which this, whether you call it ambition or libe-
rality, did not exist, to the extent of giving a place in the
circus andTin the forum to one's friends, and to the men of one's
own tribe ? The men of the poorer classes first, who had not
yet obtained from those of their own tribe ♦ ♦ ♦
XXXV. * * * that the prefect of the carpenters^ once
gave a place to the men of his own tribe. What will they
decide with respect to the eminent men who have erected
r^ular stalls in the circus, for the sake of their own tribes*
men ? All these charges of escort, of spectacles, of dinners,
are brought forward by the mxdtitude, 0 Servius, as proo&
of your over-scrupulous diligence; but still as to those coimts
of the indictment, Murena is defended by the authority of the
senate. And why not ? Does the senate think it a crime to go
to meet a man? No ; but it does, if rtl>e done for a bribe.
Prove that it was so. Does the senate think it a crime for
many men to follow him 1 No ; but it does, if they were
hired. Prove it. Or to give a man a place to see the spectacles?
jE>r to ask a man to dinner ? Not by any means; but to giVe
every one a seat, to ask every one one' meets to dinner. " What
is every one 1 " Why, the whole body of citizens. If, then,
Lucius Natta, a young man of the highest rank, as to whom
we see already of what sort of disposition he is, and what
sort of man he is likely to turn out, wished to be popular
among the centuries of the knights, both because of his
natural connexion with them, and because of his intentions
as to the future, that will not be a crime in, or matter of
accusation against his step&ther; nor, if a vestal virgin, my
client's near relation, gave up her place to see the spectacle
in his favour, was that any other tihian a pious action, nor is
he liable to any charge on that ground. All these are the
kind offices of intimate friends, the services done to the poorer
classes, the regular privileges of candidates.
But I must change my tone; for Cato argues with me on
rigid and stoic principles. He says that it is not true that
good-will is conciliated by food. He says that men's judg-
^ Besides the classes into which the centuries were divided, and
the four snperanmeraiy centuries of accerm, vdaUt proletarii, and
- capUe eenn, there were three centuries classed according to their occu-
pation. The/abri, or carpenters, who were attached to the centuries of
the first class; the comieine$, or homblowers, and lUicines, or trum-
peiersy who were reckoned with the fourth elass.
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366 . CICIEBO*S OBATIQNS.
ments, in the important business of electing to magistracies,
Tought not to be corrupted by pleasures. Therefore, if any-
one, to promote his canvass, invites another to suppexv^iia
mtist be condemned. " Shall you," says he, " seek to obtain
supreme power, supreme authority, and the helm of the re-
public, by encouraging men's sensual appetites, by soothing
their minds, by tendering luxuries to them 1 Are you ask- "
ing employment as a pimp from a band of luxurious youths,
or the sovereignty of the world from the Boman people ? "
An extraordinary sort of speech ! but our usages, our way of
living, our manners, and the constitution itself, rejects it. For
the Lacedaemonians, the original authors of that way of living
and of that sort of language, men»who lie at their daily meals
on hard oak benches, and the Cretans, of whom no one ever
lies down to eat at aU, have neither of them preserved their
poUtical constitutions or their power better than the Romans,
who set apart times for pleasure as well as times for labour; for
one of those nations was destroyed by a single invasion of our
army, the other only preserves its discipline and its laws by
means of the protection afforded to it by our supremacy.
XXXVI. Do not, then, 0 Cato, blame with too great seve-
rity of language the principles of our ancestors, which &cts,
and the length of time that our power has flourished under
them, justify. There was, in the time of our ancestonf, a
learned man of the same sect, an honourable citizen, and one
of high rank, Quintus Tubero. He, when Quintus Maximus
was giving a feast to the Boman people, in the name of his
uncle Africanus, was asked by Maximus to prepare a couch
for the banquet, as Tubero was. a son of the sister of the same
Africanus. And he, a most. learned man and a Stoic, covered
for that occasion some couches made in the Carthaginian
fiashion, with skins of kids, and exhibited some Samian* ves-
sels, as if Diogenes the Cynic had been dead, and not 5H if he
were paying respect to the obsequies of that godlike Afri-
canus; a man with respect to whom Maximus, when he was
pronouncing his funeral panegyric on the day of his^ death,
expressed his gratitude to the immortal gods for having
caused that man to be bom in this republic above all others,
for that it was quite inevitable that the sovereignty of the
world must belong to that state of which he was a citizen.
* Samian vessels were made of an inferior earthenware; Carthaginian
couches were very low and narrow.
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FOR L. HUBENA. 367
At the celebration of the obsequies of such a man the Roman
people was very indignant at the perverse wisdom of Tubero,
and therefore he, a most upright man, a most virtuous citiisen,
though he was the grandson of Lucius Paullus, the sister's
son, as I have said before, of PubHus Africanus, lost the prse-
torship by his kid skins.
The Roman people disapproves of private luxury, but ad-
mires public magnificence. It does not love profuse banquets,
still less does it love sordid and uncivilized behaviour. It
makes a proper distinction between di£ferent duties and dif-
• ferent seasons ; and allows of vicissitudes of labour and plea-
sure. For as to what you say, that it is not right for men's
minds to be influenced, in appointing magistrates, by any
other consideration than that of the worth of the candidates,
this principle even you yourself — ^you, a man of the greatest
worth — do not in every case adhere ta For why do you ask
any one to take pdns for you, to assist you ? You ask me
to make you governor over myself, to entrust myself to joxl
What is the meaning of this 1 Ought I to be asked this by-
you, or should not you rather be lafed by me to undertake
labour and danger for the sake of my safety 1 Nay more,
why is it that you have a nomenclator* with you 1 for in so
Joing^yotr are practiiidng a trick and a deceit. For if it be
an honourable thing for your fellow-citizens to be addressed
by name by you, it 'is a shameful thing for them to be better
Imown to your servant than to yourself. If, though you know
_them yourself it seems better to use a prompter, why do ygu
sometimes address them before he has whispered their names
in your ear ? Why, again, when he has reminded you of them,
do you salute them as if you knew them yourself? And why,
after you are once elected, are you more careless about salut-
ing them* at all? If you r^ulate all these things by the
xxseiges t#tKe city, it is all right; but if you choose to weigh
them by the precepts of your sect, they' will be found to be
entirely wrong. Those enjoyments, then, of games, and gla-
diators,'and l^nquets, all which things our ancestors desired,
are not to be taken awaj from the Roman people, nor ought
* candidates to be forbidden the exercise of that lundness which
is liberality rathelr than bribery.
^ The nomendcOor was a slave who accompanied the candidate in
going his ronnds, and told him the name of every one he met, so that he
might be able to accost them as if they were personally known to
himself.
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868 cioBRo's obahohb.
XXXYII. Oh, but it is the interest of the republic that
has induced you to become a prosecutor. I do believe, 0
Gate, that you have come forward under the influence of those
feelings and of that opinion. But you err out of ignoranca
That which I am doing, 0 judges, I am doing out of regard to
my friendship for Lucius Murena and to his own worth, and
I also do assert and call you all to witness that I am doing
it for the sake of peace, of tranquiUity, of concord, of liberty,
of safety, — ay, even for the sake of the lives of us alL listen^
0 judges, listen to the consul, — I will not speak with undue
arrogance, I will only say, who devotes all his thoughts day
and night to the republic. Lucius Catiline did not despise
and scorn the republic to such a degree as to think that with
the forces which he took away with him he could subdue this
city. The contagion of that wickedness spreads more widely
than any one believes : more men are implicated in it than
people are aware of It is within the city, — the Trojan horse,
1 say, is within the city ; but you shall never be surprised
tdeeping by that while I am consul. You ask of me why I
am afraid of Catiline 1 I am not ; and I have taken care that
no one should have any reason to be afraid of him ; but I do
say that those soldiers of his, whom I see present here, are
objects of fear : nor is the army which Lucius Catiline now
has with him as formidable as those men are who are said to
have deserted that army ; for they have not deserted it, but
they have been left by him as spies, as men placed in ambus-
cade, to threaten our lives and liberties. Those men are
very anxious that an ifpright consul and an able general^ a
man connected both by nature and by fortune with tiie safety
of the republic, should by your decision be removed from the
office of protecting the city, frx>m the guardianship of the
state. Their swoids and their audacity I have procured the
rejection of in the campus, I have disarmed them in the
forum, I have often checked them at my own house ; but if
you now give them up one of the consuls, they will have
gained much more by yotir votes than by their own Bword&
That which I, in spite of the resistance of many, have managed
and carried through, namely, that on the fbrst of January
there should be two consuls in the republic, is of great conse-
quence, 0 judges. Never believe that by consuls of moderate
abilities, or by the ordinary modes of proceeding
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FOB L. MUBENA* 369
It is not some unjust law, some mischievous bribery, or some
improprieties in the republic that have just been heard o^
that are the real objects for your inquiiy now. Plans have
been formed in this state, 0 judges, for destroying the city,
for massacring the citizens, for extinguishing the Roman
name. They are citizens, — citizens, I say, (if indeed it is
lawful to call them by this name,) who are forming and have
formed these plans respecting their own country. Every day
I am coxmteracting their designs, disarming their audacity^
resisting their wickedness. But I warn you, 0 judges; my
consulship is now just at an end. Do not refuse me a suc-
cessor in my diligence; do not refuse me him,' to whom I am
anxious to deliver over the republic in a sound condition, that
he may defend it from these great dangers.
XXXVIII. And do you not see, 0 judges, what other evil
there is added to these evils ? I am addressing you, — ^you, (>
Cato. Do you not foresee a storm in your year of office? for
in yesterday's assembly there thundered out the mischievous
voice of a tribune* ^lect, one of your own colleagues; against
i^om your own mind took many precautions, and so too did
all good men, when they invited you to stand for the tribune-
ship. Everything which has been plotted for the last three
years, from the time when you know that the design of n^
sacring the senate was first formed by Lucius Catiline and
by Cnseus Piso, is now breaking out on these days, in these
^ months, at this time. What place is there, 0 ju<%es, what
time, what day, what night is there, that I have not beai
'delivered and escaped from their plots and attacks, not only
by my own prudence, but much more by the providence of
the gods ? It was not that they wished to slay me as an
individual, but that they wished to get rid of a vigilant
consul, and to remove him /from the guardianship of the
republic; and they would be just as glad, 0 Cato, to remove
you too, if they could by any means contrive to do so ; and
believe me, that is what they are wishing and planning to do.
They see how much courage, how much ability, how much
authority, how much protection for the republic there is in
you; but they think that, when they have once seen the
power of the tribunes stripped of the support which it deriveB
' He means Quintus Metellus Nepos, the same man who afterwards
prevented his making an address to the people on his resigning hia
consulship.
VOL. IL B B
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370 OIOBBO'S ORATIOK&
from the authority and assistance of the consuls, they will
then find it easier to crush you when you are deprived of
your arms and vigour. Foi: they have no fear of another
consul being elected in the place of this one; they see that
that will depend upon your colleagues; they hope that Silanus,
an illustrious man, wHl be exposed to their attacks without
any colleague ; and that so wiU you without any consul ; and
that so will the republic without any protector. When such
aiB our circimistances, and such our perils, it becomes you,
0 Marcus Cato, who have been bom, not for my good, nor
for your own good, but for that^ of your country, to perceive
what are their real objects; to retain as your assistant, and
defender, and partner in the republic, a consul who has no
private desires to gratify, a consul (as this season particularly
requires) formed by fortune to court ease, but by knowledge
to carry on war, and by courage and practice to discharge in a
proper manner whatever business you can impose upon him.
XXXIX. Although the whole power of providing for this
rests with you, 0 judges,— you, in this cause, are the masters
and directors of the whole republic, — if Lucius Catiline, with
his council of infamous men whom he took oUt with him^
iDOuld give his decision in this case, he would condemn Lucius
Murena; if he could put him to death, he would. For his
pkns require the republic to be deprived of every sort of aid;
they require the number of generals who may be opposed to
his frenzy to be diminished; they require that greater power
fiiiould be given to the tribimes of the people, when they have
driven away their adversary, to raise sedition and discord.
Will, then, thoroughly honourable and wise men, chosen out
of the most dignified orders of the state, give the same deci-
sion that most profligate gladiator, the enemy of the republic,
would give ? Believe me, 0 judges, in' this case you are d.e-
ciding not only about tte safety of Lucius Murena, but also
on your own. We are in a situation of extreme danger;
there is UU HS^ans now of repairing the losses which we bave
already, sustained, or of recovering the ground which we have
lost. We must take care not only not to dimimsh the re-
sources which we still have, but to provide ourselves with
additional ones if that be possible.^ For the enemy is not on
the Anio, which in the time of the Pimic war appeiured a most
terrible thing, but he is in the city, in the forum; (O ye
immortal gods ! this cannot be said without a groan;) there
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FOB L. HUHENA. 371
are even some enemies in this sacred temple of the republic,
in the very senate-house itself. May the gods grant that my
colleague, that most gallant man, may be able in arms to
overtake and crush this impious piratical war of Catiline's.
I, in the garb of peace, with you and all virtuous men for
my assistants, will endeavour by my prudence to divide -«»*
destroy the dangers which the republic is pregnant with and
about to bring forth. But still, what will be the consequences^
if these things slip through our hands and remain in vigour "
till the ensuing year? There will be but one consid; and he
will have sufficient occupation, not in conducting a war, but
in managing the election of a colleague. Those who will
hinder him * * * * ♦ «
That intolerable pest, ***** -vdll break fortfi
wherever it oatsi find room; and even now it is threatening
the Roman people ; soon it will descend upon the suburban dis-
tricts; freoxj will range at large among the camp, fear in the
senate>house, conspiracy in the forum, an army in the Campus
Martins, and devastation all over the co\mtry. In every habi-
tation, and in every place, we shall live in fear of fire and
sword. And yet il these evils, which have been so long^
making ready against us, if the republic is fortified by its
natural mes^ of protection, will be easily put down by the
counsels of the magistrates and the diligence of private
individuals.
XL. And as this is the case, 0 judges, in the first place for
the sake of the republic, than which nothing ought to be of
more importance in the eyes of every one, I do warn you, as £
am entided to do by my extreme diligence in the cause of the
republic, which is well known to all of you, — I do exhort you,
as my consular authority gives me a right to do,-^I do^
entreat you, as the magnitude of the danger justifies me m\\
doing, to provide for the tranquillity, for the peace, ior the '
safety, for the lives of yourselves and of all the rest of your
fellow-citizens. In the next place I do appeal to your good
^th, 0 judges, (whether you may think that I do so in tiie
spirit of an advocate or a fiiend signifies but little,) and beg
of you, not to overwhelm the recent exaltation of Lucius
Murena^ an unfortunate man, of one oppressed both by bodily
diseal» and by vexation of mind, by a freeb cause for mourn-
ing. He has been ktely distinguished by the greatest kind-
ness of the Boman people, and has seemed fortunate in beipg
bb2
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372 Cicero's orations.
the first man to bring the honours of the consulship into an
old £Miiil7, and a most ancient municipality. Now, in a
mourning and imbecoming garb, debilitated by sicknesi^ worn
out with tears and grief, he is a suppliant to you, 0 judges,
invoking your good fidtib, imploring your pity, fixing all his
hopes on yoiur power and yoiur assistance. Do not, in the
name of the immortal gods, 0 judges, deprive him not only
of that office which he thought conferred additional honour
on him, and at the same time of all the honours which he had
gained before, and of all his dignity and fortune. And, 0
judges, what Lucius Murena is begging and entreating of you
is no more than this j that if l^e^has done no injury unjustly
to any o&e, if he has offended no man's ears or inclination, i£
he has never (to say the least) given any one reason to hate
him either at home or when engaged in war, he may in that
case find among you moderation in judging, and a refuge for
men in dejection, and assistance for modest merit The depri-
vation of the consulship is a measure calculated to excite
great feelings of piiy, 0 judge& For with the consulship
everything else is taken away too. And at such times as
these the consulship itself is hardly a thing to envy a man.
For it is' exposed to the harangues of seditious men, to the
plots of conspirators, to the attacks of Catiline. Jt is opposed
single-handed to every danger, and to every sort of unpopu-
larity. So that, 0 judges, 1 4o not see what there is in this
beautiful consulship which need be grudged to Murena, or to
any other man among us. But those things in it which are
calculated to make a man an object of pity, are visible to my
eyes, and you too can clearly see and comprehend them.
XLI. If (may Jupiter avert the omen) you condemn Una
man by yoin* decision, where is the unhappy man to turn f
Home f What, that he may see that image of that most
illustrious man his &ther, which a few days ago he beheld
crowned with laurel when men were congratulating him cm
his election, now in mourning and lamentation at his dis-
grace 1 Or to his mother, who, wretched woman, having lately
embraced her son as consul, is now in all the torments gh
anxiety, lest she should but a short time afterwards behold
that same son stripped of all his dignity 9 But why do I
speak of his home or of his mother, when the new punish-
ment of the law deprives him of home, and parent, and of
the intercourse with and sight of all his relations 1 Shall the
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FOB L. MURBNA. 373
wretched man then go into banishment 1 Whither shall he
go 9 Shall he go to the east, where he was for many years
lieutenant, where he commanded armies, and performed many
great exploits 1 But it is a most painful thing to return to a
place in disgrace, from which you have departed in honour. '
Shall he hide himself in the opposite regions of the earth, so
as to let Transalpine Graul see the same man grieving and
mournings whom it lately saw with the greatest joy, exercising
the highest authority 1 In that same province, moreover,
with what feelings will he behold Caius Murena, his own
brother 1 What will be the grief of the one, what will be
the agony of the other 9 What will be ihe lamentations of
both 1 How great will the vicissitudes of fortune appear, and
what, a change will there be in every one*s conversation, when
in the very places in which a few days before messengers and
ktters had repeated, with every indication of joy, that Murena
had been made consul, — in ike very places from which his
own friendd and his hereditary connexions flocked to Borne
for the purpose of congratulating him, he himself arrives on
a sudden as the messenger of lus own misfortune ! And if
these things seem bitter, and miserable, and grievous, — ^if
they are most foreign to your general clemency and merciful
disposition, 0 judges, then maintain the kindness done to him
by the Boman people ; restore the consul to the republic ;
grant this to his own modesty, grant it to his dead father,
grant it to his race and &mily, grant it also te Lanuvium,
that most honourable municipality, the whole population of
which you have seen watching this cause with tears and
mourning. Do not tear from his ancestral sacrifices te Jimo
Sospita, to whom all consuls are boimd to offer sacrifice, a
consul who is so peculiarly her own. Him, if my recom-
mendation has any weight, if my solemn assertion has any
authority, I now recommend to you, 0 judges, — ^I the consul
recommend him to you as consul, promising and undertaking
that he will prove most desirous of tranquillity, most anxious
to consult the interests of virtuous men, very active against
sedition, vety brave in war, and an irreconcilable enemy to
this conspiracy, which is at this moment seeking to under-
mine the republia
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371 . OIGBBO'S ORAnON&
THE ORATION OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF
PUBLIUS SYLLA.
THB ABaUMXHT.
Publius Sylla having been elected consul with Pablius Antronins foor
years before, had been impeached for bribeiy, convicted, and deprived
ci his conBohhip. He had then been prosecuted by Torquatus. He
was now impeached by the younger Torquatus, the son of his former
prosecutor, as having been implicated in both of Catiline's conspi-
racies. (Autronius was accused also, and he also applied to Cicero to
defend him, but Cicero, being convinced that he was guilty, not only
refiised to defend him, but appeared as a witness against him.) Tor-
quatus's real motive app^rs to have been jealousy of the fsune which
Cicero had obtained in nis consulship; and, in his speech for the pro-
secution, when he found that Cicero had undertaken Sylla's cause, he
had attacked Cicero himself, and tried to bring him into unpopularity,
calling him a king who assumed a power to save or to destroy just as
he thought fit ; and saying that he was the third foreign king that
had reigned in Rome ; Kuma and Tarquin being the two former.
Sylla was acquitted.
I. I SHOULD have been very glad, 0 judges, if Publius Sylla
liad been able formerly to retain the honour of the dignity to
which he was appointed, and had been allowed, after &e mis-
fortune which befel him, to derive some reward from his
moderation in adversity. But since his unfriendly fortune
has brought it about that he has been damaged, even at a
time of his greatest honour, by the unpopularity ensuing not
only from the common envy which pursues ambitious men,
but also by the singular hatred in which Autronius is held,
and that even in this sad and deplorable wreck of his former
fortunes, he has still some enemies whose hostility he is unable
to appease by the pimishment which has Mien upon him ;
although I am very greatly concerned at his distresses, yet in
his other mislbrtimes I can easily endure that an opportunity
should be offered to me of causing virtuous men to recognise
my lenity and merciful disposition, which was formerly known
to every one, but which has of late been interrupted as it
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VOB P. BTLLA. 375
were ; and of forcing wicked and profligate citizens, being
again defeated and vanquished, to confess that, when the
republic was in danger, I was energetic and fearless ; now that
it i^ saved, I am lenient and mercifiiL And since Lucius
.Torquatus, 0 judges, my own most intimate friend, 0 judges,
has thought that, if he violated our friendship and intimacy
somewhat in his speech for the prosecution, he could by that
means detract a little from the authority of my defence, I will
unite with my endeavours to ward oflF danger from my client,
a defence of my own conduct in the discharge of my duty.
Not that I would employ that sort of speech at present, 0
judges, if my own interest alone were concerned, for on many
occasions and in many places I have had, and I often shaU
have, opportunities of speaking of my own credit. But as he,
0 judges, has thought that the more he could take away from
my authority, the more also he would be diminishing my
client's means of protection; I also think, that if I can induce
you to approve of the principles of my conduct, and my
wisdom in this discharge of my duty and in undertaking this
defence, I shall also induce you to look favourably on the
cause of Tublius Sylla. And in the first place, 0 Torquatus,
1 ask you this, why you should separate me from the other
illustrious and chief men of this city, in regard to this duty,
and to the right of defending clients 1 For what is the reason
why the act of Quintus Hortensius, a most illustrious man
and a most accomplished citizen, is not blamed by you, and
mine is blamed 1 For if a design of firing the city, and of
eitingidshing this empire, and of destroying this city, was
entertained by Publius Sylla, ought not such projects to raise
greater indignation and greater hatred against their authors
in me than in Quintus Hortensius ? Ought not my opinion
to be more severe in such a matter, as to whom I should
think fit. to assist in these causes, whom to oppose, whom
to defend, and whom to abandon ? No doubt, says he, for
it was you who investigated, you who laid open the whole
conspiracy.
II. And when he says this, he does not perceive that the
man who laid it open took care that all men should see that
which had previously been hidden. Wherefore that con-
spiracy, if it was laid open by me, is now as evident in all its
paxtictdars to Hortensius as it is to me. And when you see
that he, a man of such rank, and authority, and virtue, and
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376 OICBBO'S OBATIONB.
wisdom, has not hesitated to defend this innocent Publiua
Sylla, I ask why the access to the cause which was open to
Hortensius, ought to be closed against me? I ask this also, —
if you think that I, who defend him, am to be blamed, what
do you think of those excellent men and most illustrious
citizeni^ by whose Eeal and dignified presence you perceive
that this trial is attended, by whom the oause of my client is
honoured, by whom his innocence is upheld 1 Fot that is
not the only method of defending a man's cause which con-
sists in speaking for him. All who coimtenanoe him with ,
their presence, who show anxiety in his behalf, who desire his
safety, all, as fiu: as their opportunities allow or liieir autho-
rity extends, are defending him. Ought I to be unwilling to
appear on these benches on which I see these lights and orna-
ments of the republic, when it is only by my own numerous
and great labours and dangers th&t I have mounted into their
rank, and into this lofty position and dignity which I now
enjoy 1- And that you may understand, 0 Torquatus, whom
you are accusing, if you are offended that I, who have defended
no one on inquiries of this sort, do not abandon Publius Sylla,
remember also the other men, whom you see countenancing
this n^n by their presence. You will see that their opinion
and mine has been one and the same about this man's case,
and about that of the others. Who of us stood by Vaigun-
tius 1 No one. Not even this Quintus Hortensius, the very
man who had formerly been his only defender when prose-
cuted for corruption. For he did not think himself con-
nected by any bond of duty with that man, when he, by the
commission of such enormous wickedness, had broken asunder
the ties of all duties whatever. Who of us countenanced
Servius Sylla 1 who * * * ? who of us thought Marcus
Laeca or Caius Cornelius fit to be defended 1 who of all the
men whom you see here gave the countenance of his presence
to any one of those criminals 1 No one. Why was that ?
Because in other causes good men think that they ought not
to refuse to defend even guilty men, if they are their own in-
timate personal friends ; but, in this prosecution, there would
not only be the fault of acting li^tly, but there would be even
some infection of wickedness which would taint one who de-
fended that man whom he suspected of being involved in ilie
guilt of planning the parricide of his country. What was the
case of Autronius 1 did not his companions, did not his own
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FOR P. BTLLA. 377
colleagues, did not his former Mends, of whom he had at one
time an ample number, did not all these men, who are the
chief men in the republic, abandon him 1 Ay, and many of
them even damaged him with their eyidence. They made up
their minds that it was an offence of such enormity, that they-
not only were bound to abstain from doing anything to con-
ceal it, but that it was their duty to reveal it, and throw all
the light that they were able upon it
III. What reason is there then for your wondering, if you
see me countenancing this cause in company with those men,
whom you know that I also joined in discoimtenancing ihe
other causes by absenting myseK from them. Unless you
wish me to be considered a man of eminent ferocity before all
other men, a man savage, inhuman, and endowed with an ex-
traordinaiy cruelty and barbarity of disposition. If this be
the character which, on accoimt of all my exploits, you wish
now to fix upon my whole life, O Torquatus, you are greatly
mistaken. Nature made me mercifiil, my •country made
me severe ; but neither my country nor nature has ever
required me to be cruel. Lastly, that same vehement and
fierce character which at that time the occasion and the
republic imposed upon me, my own inclination and nature
itself has now relieved me of; for my country required seve-
rity for a short time, my nature requires clemency and lenity
during my whole liSfe. There is, liierefore, no pretence for
your separating me from so nimierous a company of most
honourable men. Duly is a plain thin^ and the cause of all
men is one and the same. Tou will have no reason to marvel
hereafter, whenever you see me on the same side as you ob-
serve these men. For there is no side in the republic in which
I have a peculiar and exclusive property. The time for acting
did belong more peculiarly to me than to the others ; but
the cause of indignation, and fear, and danger was common to
us all. Nor, indeed, coidd I have been at that time, as I was,
the chief man in providing for the safety of the state, if others
had been unwilling to be my com][)anion& Wherefore, it is
inevitable that that which, when I was consul, belonged to me
especially above all other men, should, now that I am a pri-
vate individual, belong to me in common with the re^. Nor
do I say this for the sake of sharing my unpopularity with
others, but rather with the object of fdlowing tiiem to partake
of my praises. I will give a share of my burden to no one ;
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378 acEBO*s orationb.
but a shai'e of my glory to all good men. " You gave evi-
dence against Autronius," says be, " and you are defending
Sylla." All this, 0 judges, has this object, to prove that, if I
am an inconstant and fickle-minded man, my evidence ought
not to be credited, and my defence ought not to cany any
.authority with it. But if tiiere is foimd in me a proper consi-
deration for the republic, a scrupulous r^ard to my duty,
anjl a constant desire to retam the good-will of virtuous men,
then there is nothing which an accuser ought less to say than
that Sylla is defended by me, but that Autrouius was injured
by my evidence against him. For I think jjthat I not only
carry with me z^ in defending causes, but also, that my
deliberate opinion has some weight ; which, however, I wiU
use with moderation^ 0 judges, and I would not have used it
at all if he had not compelled me.
*^ V. Two conspiracies are spoken of by you, 0 Torquatus ;
one, whichTs"saM^o tave been formed in the consulship of
Lepidus and Volcatius, when your own fiither was consul
elect; the other, that which broke out in my consulship. In
eaeh of these you say that Sylla was implicated. You know
that I was not acquainted with the counsels of your fiither, a
most brave man, and a most excellent consul. You know, as
there was the greatest intimacy between you and me, that
I knew nothing of what happened, or of what was said in
those times; I imagine, because I had not yet become a
thoroughly public character, because I had not yet arrived at
the goal of honour which I proposed to myself, and because
my ambition and my forensic labours separated me from all
political deliberations. Who, then, was present at your coun-
sels 1 All these men whom you see here, giving Sylla the
oountenance of their presence ; and among the first was
Quintus Hortensius — ^who, by reaaoiji of his honour and worth,
and his admirable disposition towards the republic, and be-
cause of his exceeding intimacy with and excessive attachment
to your father, was greatly moved by the thoughts of the
oommon danger, and most especially by the personal peril of
your £Either. Therefore, he was defended from the charge of
being implicated in that conspiracy by that man who was
present at and acquainted with all your deliberations, who was
a partner in all your thoughts and in all your fears ; and, ele-
^mt and argumentative as his speech in repelling this accusa-
tion was, it carried with it as much authority as it displayed
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FOB P. STLLA. 379
of ability. Of that conspiracy; therefore, which is said to haye
been formed against you, to have been reported to you, and to
have been revelled by you, I was unable to say anything as a
witness. For I not oi:Jy found out nothing, but scarcely did
any report or suspicion of that matter reach my ears. They
who were your counsellors, who became acquainted with these
things in your company, — ^they who were supposed to be them-
selves menaced wiUi that danger, who gave no countenance to
Autronius, who gave most important evidence against him, —
are now defending Publius Sylla, are countenancing him by
their presence here; now that he is in danger they declare that
they were not deterred by the accusation of con^iracy from
coimtenancing the others, but by the guilt of the men. But
for the time of my consulship, and with respect to the charge
of the greatest conspiracy, Sylla shaJl be defended by me. And
this partition of the cause between Hortensius and me has not
been made by chance, or at random, 0 judges, but, as we saw
that we were employed as defenders of a man against those ac-
cusations in which we might have been witnesses, each of us
thought that it would be best for him to imdertake that part
of the case, concerning which he himself had been able to acquire
some knowledge, and to form some opinions with certainty.'
V. And since you have listened attentively to Hortensius,
while speaking on the charge respecting the former conspiracy,
now, I beg you, listen to t&s firat statement of mine respect-
ing the conspiracy which was formed in my consulship.
When I was consul I heard many reports, I made many in-
quiries, I learnt a gr^t many circumstances, concerning the
extreme peril of the republic. No messenger, no information,
no letters, no suspicion ever reached me at any time in the
least affecting SyUa. Perhaps this assertion ought to have
great weight, when coming from a man who, as consul,
had investigated the plots laid against the republic with
prudence, had revealed them with sincerity, had chastised
them with magnanimity, and who says that he himself never
heard a "word against Publius Sylla, and never entertained
a suspicion of him. But I do not as yet employ this
assertion for the purpose of defending him ; I rather use
it with a view to clear myself, in order that Torquatus may
cease to wonder that I, who would not appear by the side
of Autronius, am now defending Sylla. 'For what was the
cause of Autronius ? and what is the cause of Sylla 1 The
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380 CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
former tried to disturb and get rid of a prosecution for bribeiy
by raising in the first instance a sedition among gladiators and
runaway slaves, and after that, as we all saw, by stoning
people, and collecting a violent mob. SyUa, if his own modesty
and worth could not avail him, sought no other assistance.
The former, when he had been convicted, behaved in such
a manner, not only in his secret designs and conversation, but
in every look and in his whole countenance, as to appear
an enemy to the most honourable orders in the state, hostile
to every virtuous man, and a foe to his country. The latter
considered himself so bowei down, so broken down by that
misfortune, that he thought that none of his former dignity
was left to him, except what he could retain by his present
moderation. And in this conspiracy, what union was ever so
close as that between Autronius and Catiline, between Autro-
nius and Lentulus? What combination was there ever between
any men for the most virtuous purposes, so intimate as his
connexion with them for deeds of wickedness, lust and
audacity 1 — ^what crime is there which Lentulus did not plot
with Autronius 1 — ^what atrocity did Catiline ever commit
without his assistance 9 while, in the meantime, Sylla not only
abstained from seeking the concealment of night and solitude in
their company, but he had never the very slightest intercourse
with them, either in conversation or in casual meetings. The
Allobroges, those who gave us the truest information on the
most important matters, accused Autronius, and so did the
letters of many men, and many private witnesses. AH that
time no one ever accused Sylla ; no one ever mentioned his
name. Lastly, afi^er Catiline had been driven out, or allowed
to depart out of the city, Autronius sent him arms, trumpets,
bugles, scythes, ' standards, legions. He who was left in the
city, but expected out of it, fiiough checked by the punish^
ment of Lentulus, gave way at times to feelings of fear, but
never to any right feelings or good sense. Sylla, on the other
hand, was so quiet, that all that time he was at Naples, where
it is not supposed that there were any men who were implicated
in or suspected of this crime ; and the place itself is one not
00 well calculated to excite the feelings of men in distress, as
to console them.
YI. On account, therefore, of this great dissimilariiy be-
' Some commentators propose faaces instead of foUcea here, and it
would certainly make much better sense.
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FOB P. STLLA. 381
tween the men and the cases, I also behaved in a different
manner to them both. For Autronius came to me, and he
was constantly coming to me, with many tears, as a sup-
pliant, to beg me to defend him, and he used to remind me
that he had been my schoolfellow in my childhood, my friend
in my youth, and my colleague in the qusestorship. He used
to enumerate many services which I had done him, and some
also which he had done me. By all which circumstances,
0 judges, 1 was so much swayed and influenced, that I banished
from my recollection all the plots which he had laid against
me myself; mat I forgot that Caius Cornelius had been lately
sent by him for the purpose of killing me in my own house,
in the sight of my wife and children. And if he had formed
these designs against me alone, such is my softness and lenity
of disposition, that I should never have been able to resist his
tears and entreaties ; but when the thoughts of my country,
of your dangers, of this city, of all those shrines and temples
which we see around us, of the infant children, and matrons,
and virgins of the city occurred to me, and when those hostile
and &,tal torches destined for the entire conflagration of the
whole city, when the arms which had been collected, when the
slaughter and blood of the citizens, when the afdies of my
country began to present themselves to my eyes, and to excite
my feelings by ^e recollection, then 1 resisted him, then
1 resisted not only that enemy of his country, that parricide
himself, but 1 withstood also lus relations the Marcelli, &ther
and son, one of whom was regarded by me with the respect
due to a parent, and the other with the ejection which one feels
towards a son. And I thought that I could not, without being
guilty of the very greatest wickedness, defend in their companion
Uie same crimes which I had chastised in the case of others,
when I knew him to be guilty. And, on the same principle,
I could not endure to see Fublius Sylla coming to me as a
suppliant, or these same Marcelli in tears at his danger ; nor
could I resist the entreaties of Marcus Messala, whom you see
in court, a most intimate friend of my own. For, neittier was
his cause disagreeable to my natural disposition, nor had the
man or jbhe faictB anything in them at variance with my feel-
ings of clemency. His name had never been mentioned, there
was no trace whatever of him in the conspiracy ; no information
had touched him, no suspicion had been breathed of him. I un-
dertook his cause, 0 Torquatus ; I undertook it, and I did so
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882 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
willingly, in order that, while good men had alwajs, as I hope,
thought me virtuous and firm not even bad men might be
able to call me crueL
YII. This Torquatus then, 0 judges, says that he cannot
endure my kingly power. What is the meaning of my kingly
power, 0 Torquatus ? I suppose you mean the power I ex-
erted in my consulship j in which I did not command at all,
but, on the contrary, I obeyed the conscript fathers, and all
good men. In iny dischwge of that ofl&ce, 0 judges, kingly
power was not esfeJ^lished by me, but put down. Will you say ^
that then, when I had such absolute power and authority over
all the military and civil aflftdrs of the state, I was not a king,
but that now, when I am only a private individual, I have the
power of a king ? Under what title 1 " Why, because," says he,
*' those against whom you gave evidence were convicted, and
the man whom you defend hopes that he shall be acquitted."
Here I make you Hiis reply, as to what concerns my evidence :
that if I gave false evidence, you also gave evidence against
the same man ; if my testimony was true, then I say, that per-
suading the judges to believe a true statement, which one has
made on oath, is a very different thing from being a king.
And of the hopes of my client, I only say, that PuWdus Sylla
does not expect from me any exertion of my influence or in-
terest, or, in short, anything except to defend him with good
fidth. " But unless you," says he, " had imdertaken his cause,
he would never have resisted me, but would have fled without
saying a word in his defence." Even if I were to crantto you
that Quintus Hortensius, being a man of such wisdom as he is,
and that all these men of high character, rely not on their own
judgment but on mine ; if I were to grant to you, what no
one can believe, that these men would not have countenanced
Publius Sylla if I had not done so too ; still, which is the
king, he whom men, though perfectly innocent, cannot resist,
or he who does not abandon men in misfortime ? But here
too, though you had not the least occasion for it^ you took a
£uicy to be witty, ^hen you called me TarqiuOj^^ndNum^^
the third foreign king of Rome. I won't say any moreaEout
ihe word king ; "but T^houlct like to know why you called me
a foreigner. For, if I am such, then it is not so marvdlous
that I should be a king, — because, as you say yourself
foreigners have before now been kings at Bom^ — as that a
foreigner should be a consul at Rome. ^ This is what I
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FOB P. SYLLA. 383
mean^'' says he, " that you come from a municipal town."
I coi^ess liiat I do, and I add, that I come from that mimi-
dpal town from which salyation to this city and empire has
more than once proceeded. But I should like exceedingly to
know from you, how it is that those men who come from the
municipal towns appear to you to be foreigners. For no one
ever made that objection to that great man, Marcus Cato the
elder, though he had many enemies, or to Titus Coruncanituf,
or to MarQus Curius, or even to that great hero of our own
times, Caius Marius, through many men enyied him. In truth,
I am exceedingly delighted that I am a man of such a character
that, when you were anxious to find fiiult with me, you could
still find nothing to reproach me with which did not apply
also to the greater part of the citizens.
VIII. But still, on accoimt of your great friendship and
intimacy, I think it well to remind you of this more than
once — all men cannot be patricians. If you would know the
truth, they do not all even wish to be so j' nor do those of
your own age think that you ought on that account to have
precedence over them. And if we seem to you to be
foreigners, we whose name and honours have now become
fiimiliar topics of conversation and panegyric throughout the
city and among all men, how greatly must those competitors
of yours seem to be foreigners, who now, having been picked
out of all Italy, are contending with you for honour and for
every dignity ! And yet take care that you do not call one of
these a foreigner, lest you should be overwhelmed by the
votes of the foreigners. For if they once bring their activity
and perseverance into action, believe me they will shake those
arrogant expressions out of you, and they will fi:equeQ.tly
wake you from sleep, and will not endure to be surpassed by
you in honours, imless they are also excelled by you in virtue.
And if, 0 judges, it is fit for me and you to be considered
foreigners by the re^ of the patricians, stiU nothing ought to
be said about this blot by Torquatus. For he himself is, on
his mother^s side, a citizen of a municipal town ; a man of
a most honourable and noble &inily, but still he comes from
Asculum. Either let him, then, show that the Picentians
alone are not foreigners, or else let him coi^ratulate himself
that I do not put my &,mily before his. So do not for the
futmre call me a foreigner, lest you meet with a sterner reftita-
ti(m; and do not call me a king^ lest you be laughed at
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384 OIOBBO'b OBAnOHB.
Unless, indeed, it appears to be the conduct of a king to liTe
in such a manner as not to be dave not only to any man,
but not even to any passion ; to despise all capricious desires;
to covet neither gold nor silver, nor anything else ; to form
one's opinions in the senate with freedom ; to consider the
real interests of the people, rather than their inclinations ; to
yield to no one, to oppose many men. If you think that
this is the conduct of a king, then I confess that I am a king.
K my power, if my sway, if, lastly, any arrogant or hau^ty
expression of mine moves your indignation, then you shoxdd i
rather allege that^ than stoop to raise odium against me by a
name, and to employ mere abuse and insult.
IX. I^ after having done so many services to the republic,
I were to ask for myself no other reward from the senate and
people of Rome beyond honourable ease, who is there who
would not grant it to me ? If I were to ask, that they would
keep all honours, and commands, and provinces, and tnumphs,
and all the other insignia of eminent renown to themselves^
and that they would allow me to enjoy the sight of the city
which I had saved, and a tranquil and quiet mind? — What,
however, if I do not ask this 1 what, if my former industry,
my anxiety, my assistance, my labour, my vigilance is still at
the service of my friends, and ready at the adl of every one t
If my friends never seek in vain for my zeal on their behalf
in the forum, nor the republic in the senate house; if neither
the holiday earned by my previous achievements, nor the excuse
which my past honours or my present age might supply me
with, is employed to save me from trouble ; if my good- will,
my industry, my house, my attention, and my ears are always
open to all men; if I have not even any time left to recollect
and think over those things which I have done for the safety
of the whole body of citizens; shall this still be called kingly
power, when no one can possibly be found who would act as
my substitute in it 1 All suspicion of aiming at kingly power
is very far removed from me. If you ask who they are who
have endeavoured to assume kingly power in Rome, without
tmfolding the records of the public annals, you may find them
among the images in your own house. I suppose it is my
achievements which have unduly elated me, and have inspired
me with I know not how much pride. Concerning whidi
deeds of mine, illustrious and immortal as they ar^ 0 judges,
I can say thus much — ^that I, who have saved this city, and
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FOB P. STLLA. 385
the lives of all the citizens, from the most extreme dangers,
shall have gained quite reward enough, if no danger arises
to myself out of iSie great service which I have done to
all men.
In truth, I recollect in what state it is that I have done
such great exploits, and in what city I am living. The forum
is full of those men whom I, 0 judges, have taken off from
your necks, but have not removed from my own. Unless you
think that they were only a few men, who were able to at-
tempt or to hope that they might be able to destroy so vast
an empire. I was able to take away their firebrands, to wrest
their torches from their hands, as I did ; but their wicked
and impious inclinations I could neither cure nor eradicate.
Therefore I am not ignorant in what danger I am living
among such a multitude of wicked men, since I see that I
have undertaken singlehanded an eternal war a^;ainst all
wicked men.
X. But if, perchance, you envy that means of protection
which I have, and if it seems to you to be of a kingly sort, —
namely, the &ct that all good men of all ranks and classes
consider their safety as bound up with mine, — comfort your-
self with the reflection that the dispositions of all wicked
men are especially hostile to and furious against me alone;
and they hate me, not only because I repressed their profligate
attempts and impious madness, but still more because they
think, that, as long as I am aliYe, they can attempt nothing
more of the same sort. But why do I wonder if any wicked
thing is said of me by wicked men, where Lucius Torquatus
himself, after having in the first place laid such a foundation
•of virtue as he did in his youth, after having proposed to
himself the hope of the most honourable dignity in the state,
and, in the second place, beiog the son of Lucius Torquatus,
a most intrepid consul, a most virtuous senator, and at all
times.a most admirable citizen, is sometimes run away with
by impetuosity of language 1 For when he had spoken in a
low voice of ilie wickedness of Publius Lentulus, and of the
audacity of all the conspirators, so that only you, who ap-
prove of those things, could hear what he said, he spoke with
a loud querulous voice of the execution of Publius Lentulus
and of the prison ; in which there was, first of all, this absurdity,
that when he wished to gain your approval of the incon-
aiderate things which he had said, but did not wish those
VOL. II. 0 0
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386 OIOEBO*B OBATIONS.
men, who were standing around the tribunal, to hear them,
he did not perceive that, while he was speaking so loudly,
those men whose fetvour he was seeking to gain could not
hear him, without your hearing him too, who did not apjH:ove
of what he was saying ; and, in the second place, it is a great
defect in an orator not to see what each cause requires. For
nolhing is so inconsistent as for a man who is accusing
another of conspiracy, to appear to lament the pimishment
and death of conspirators; which is not, indeed, strange to any
one, when it is done by that tribune of the people who
appears to be the only man left to bewail those conspirators ;
for it is difficult to be silent when you are really grieved.
But, if you do anything of that sort, I do greatly marvel at
you, not only because you are such a young man as you are,
but because you do it in the very cause in which you wish to
appear as a punisher of conspiracy. However, what I find
feult with most of all, is this : that you, with your abilities
and your prudence, do not maintain the true interest of the
repubhc, but believe, on the contrary, that those actions are
not approved of by the Koman people, which, when I was
consul, were done by all virtuous men, for the preservation of
the common safety of all.
XI. Do you believe that any one of those men who are
here present, into whose favour you were seeking to insinuate
yourself against their will, waa either so wicked as to wish all
these things to be destroyed, or so miserable as to wish to
perish himself, and to have nothing which he wished to pre-
serve? Is there any one who blames the most illustrious
man of your family and name, who deprived his own son * of
life in order to strengthen his power over the rest of his
army; and do you blame the repubhc, for destroying domestic
enemies in order to avoid being herself destroyed by them ?
Take notice then, 0 Torquatus, to what extent I shirk the
avowal of the actions of my consulship. I speak, and I always
will speak, with my loudest voice, in order that all men may
be able to hear me : be present all of you with your minds,
ye who are present with your bodies, ye in whose numerous
attendance I take great pleasure; give me your attention
* This refers to the stoiy of Titus Manlius Torquatus, who, in the
Latin war (a.ti.o. 415), put his own son to death for leaving his raiiks (in
forgetfulness of a general order issued by his father the consul) to fight
Geminius Metius, whom he slew. The stoiy is told h/ Llvy, lib. iii. c 7.
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FOB P. SYLLA. 387
and all your ears, and listen to me while I speak of what
he believes to be unpopular topics. I, as consul^ when an
army of abandoned citizens, got together by clandestine
^. ickedness, had prepared a most cruel and miserable destruc-
tion for my country ; when Catiline had been appointed to
manage the fall and ruin of the republic in the camp, and
when Lentulus was the leader among these very temples and
houses aroimd us ; I, I say, by my labours, at the risk of my
own life, by my prudence, without any tmnult, without
making any extraordinary levies, without arms, without an
army, having arrested and executed five men, delivered the
dty from conflagration, the citizens from massacre, Italy
from devastation, the republic from destruction. I, at the
price of the punishment of five frantic and ruined men, ran-
somed the lives of all the citizens, the constitution of the
whole world, this city, the home of all of us, the citadel of
foreign kings and foreign nations, the light of all people, the
abode of empire. Did you think that I would not say this
in a court of justice when I was not on my oath, wWch I
had said before now in a most nimierous assembly when
speaking * on oath 1
XII. And I will say this fiirther, 0 Torquatus, to prevent
any wicked man from conceiving any sudden attachment to,
or any sudden hopes of you ; and, in order that every one
may hear it, I will say it as loudly as I can : — Of all those
things which I undertook and did during my consulship in
defence of the common safety, that Lucius Torquatus, beiijg
my constant comrade in my consulship, and having been so
also in my prsetorship, was my defender, and assistant, and
partner in my actions ; being also the chiei^ and the leader,
and the standard-bearer of the Roman youth ; and his fiither,
a man most devoted to his country, a man of the greatest
courage, of the most consummate political wisdom, and of sin-
gular firmness, though he was sick, still was constantly present
at all my actions ; he never left my side : he, by his zeal md
* This refers to Cicero's conduct when resigning his consulship.
Metellus, as has been said before, refused to allow him to make a speedi
to the people, because, as he said, he had put Roman citizens to death
without a trial ; on which Cicero, instead of making oath in the ordi-
naiy formula, that he had discharged his duty with fidelity, swore with
a loud Toice ** that the republic and the city had been sayed by his
nnassisted labour ;" and all the Boman people cried out with one voice
that that statement was true to its fullest extent. See Cic. in Pis. 8.
Oo2
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388 CIOEBOS ORATIONS.
wisdom and authority was of the very greatest assistance to
me, overcoming the infirmity of his body by the vigour of his
mind. Do you not see now, how I deliver you from the
danger of any sudden popularity among the wicked, and
reconcile you to all good men? who love you, and cherish
you, and who always will cherish you ; nor, if perchance you
for a while abandon me, will they on that account allow you
to abandon them and the republic and your own dignity.
But now I return to the cause; and I call you, 0 judges,
to bear witness to this; — that this necessity of speaking of
myself was imposed on me by him. For if Torquatus had
been content with accusing Sylla, I too at the present time
should have done nothing beyond defending him who had
been accused*; but when he, in his whole speech, inveighed
against me, and whcm, in the very beginning, as I said, he
sought to deprive my defence of all authority, even if my
indignation had not compelled me to speak, still the neces-
sity of doing justice to my cause would have demanded this
speech from me.
Xllt. You say that SyUa was named by the Allobroges.
Who denies iti but read the information, and see how he was
named. They said that Lucius Cassius had said that, among
other men, Autronius was favourable to their designs. I ask,
did Cassius say that Sylla was ? Never. They say that they
themselves inquired of Cassius what Sylla's opinions were.
Observe the diligence of the Gauls. They, knowing nothing
of the life or character of the man, but only having heard
that he and Autronius had met with one common disaster,
tisked whether his inclinations were the same 1 What then t
Even if Cassius had made answer that Sylla was of the same
opinion, and was favourable to their views, still it would not
•seem to me that that reply ought to be made matter of accu-
sation against him. How so 1 Because, as it was his object
to instigate the barbarians to war, it was no business of his
to weaken their expectations, or to acquit those men of whom
they did entertain some suspicions. But yet he did not reply,
that Sylla was fiivourable to their designs. And, in truth, it
would have been an absurdity, after he had named every one
else of his own accord, to make no mention of Sylla till he
was reminded of him and asked about him. Unless you
think this probable, that Lucius Cassius had quite forgotten
the name of Publius Sylla. Even if the high rank of the
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FOR P. STLLA. 389
man^ and his unfortunate condition, and the relics of his
ancient dignity, had not maxie him notorious, still the men-
tion of Autronius must have recalled Sylla to his recollection.
In truth, it is my opinion, that, when Cassius was enume-
rating the authority of the chief men of the conspiracy, for
the purpose of exciting the minds of the AUobroges, as he
know that the foreign nations are especially moved by an
illustrious name, he would not have named Autronius before
Sylla, if he had been able to name Sylla at all. But no one
can be induced to believe this, — ^that the Gauls, the moment
that Autronius was named, should have thought, on account
of the similarity of their misfortunes, that it was worth their
while to make inquiries about SyDa, but that Cassius, if he
really was implicated in this wickedness, should never have
once recollected Sylla, even after he had named Autronius.
However, what was the reply which Cassius made about
Sylla? He said that he was not sure. " He does not acquit
him," says Torquatus. I have said before, that, even if ho
had accused him, when he was interrogated in this manner,
his reply ought not to have been made matter of accusa-
tion against SyUa. But I think that, in judicial proceedings
and examinations, the thing to be inquired is, not whether
any one is exculpated, but whether any one is inculpated.
And in truth, when Cassius says that he does not know, is he
seeking to exculpate Sylla, or proving clearly enough that he
really does not know? He is unwilling to compromise Jbim
with the Gauls. Why tfo 1 That they may not mention him
in their information 1 What? If he had supposed that
there was any danger of their ever giving any information at
all, would he have made that confession respecting himself?
He did not know it. I suppose, 0 judges, Sylla was the only
person about whom Cassius was kept in the dark. For he
certainly was well informed about every one else ; and it was
thoroughly proved that a great deal of the conspiracy was
hatched at his house. As he did not like to deny that Sylla
made one of the conspirators, his object being to give the
Gauls as much hope as possible, and as he did not venture to
assert what was absolutely &Ise, he said that he did not know.
But this is quite evident, that as he, who knew the truth
about every oi\e, said that he did not know about Sylla, the
jame weight is due to this denial of his as if he had said that
he did know that he had nothing to do with the conspiracy.
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390 CIOSBO'S ORATIONS.
For when it is perfectly certain that a man is acquainted with
all the conspirators, his ignorance of any one ought to he
considered an acquittal of him. But I am not asking now
whether Cassius acquits Sylla; this is quite sufficient for me,
that there is not one word to implicate Sylla in the whole
information of the Allobroges.
XIV. Torquatus being cut off from this article of his accu-
sation, again turns against me, and accuses me. He says that
I have made an entry in the public registers of a different
statement from that which was really made. 0 ye immortal
gods ! (for I will give you what belongs to you ; nor can I
attribute so much to my own ability, as to think that I was
able, in that most turbulent tempest which was afflicting the
republic, to manage, of my own power, so many and such
important aflfe,irs, — ^affairs arising so unexpectedly, and of such
various characters,) it was you, in truth, who then inflamed
my mind with the desire of saving my country ; it was you
who turned me from all other thoughts to the one idea of
preserving the republic ; it was you who, amid all that dark-
ness of error and ignorance, held a bright light before my
mind! I saw this, 0 judges, that unless, while the recollection
of the senate on the subject was still fresh, I bore evidence
to the authority and to the particulars of this information by
public records, hereafter some one, not Torquatus, nor any
one like Torquatus, (for in that indeed I have been much
deceived,) but some one who had lost his patrimony, some
enemy of tranquillity, some foe to all good men, would say
that the information given had been different ; in order the
more easily, when some gale of odium had been stirred up
against all virtuous men, to be able, amid the misfortunes of
the republic, to discover some harbour for his own broken
vessel. Therefore, having introduced the informers into the
senate, I appointed senators to take down every statement
made by the informers, every question that was asked, and
6very answer that was given. And what men they were !
Not only men of the greatest virtue and good feith, of which
sort of men there are plenty in the senate, but men, also,
who I knew from their memory, from their knowledge, from,
their habit and rapidity of writing, could most easily follow
everything that was said. I selected Caius^Coscouius, who
was praetor at the time ; Marcus Messala, who was at the time
standing for the prsetorship ; Publius Nigidius, and Appius
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FOB P. BYLLA. 391
Claudius. I believe that there is no one who thinks that
these men were deficient either in the good faith or in the
ability requisite to enable them to give an accurate report.
XV. What foUowedl What did I do next? As I knew
that the information was by these jiieans entered among the
public documents, but yet that those records would be kept
in the custody of private individuals, according to the customs
of our ancestors, I did not conceal it ; I did not keep it at
my own house ; but I caused it at once to be copied out by
several clerks, and to be distributed everywhere, and pub-
lished and made known to the Roman people. I distributed
it all over Italy, I sent copies of it into every province ; I
wish no one to be ignorant of that information, by means of
which safety was procured for all. And I took this precau-
tion, though at so disturbed a time, and when all opportunities
of acting were so sudden and so brief, at the suggestion of
some divine providence, as I said before, and not of my own
accord, or of my own wisdom ; taking care, in the first instance,
that no one should be able to recollect of the danger to the
repubjic, or to any individual, only as much as he pleased ;
and in the second place, that no one should be able at any
time to find fault with that information, or to accuse us of
having given credit to it rashly; and lastly, that no one
should ever put any questions to me, or seek to learn any-
thing from my private journals, lest I might be accused of
either forgetting or remembering too much, and lest any
negligence of mine should be thought discreditable, or lest
any eagerness on my part might seem cruel.
But still, 0 Torquatus, I ask you, as your enemy was men-
tioned in the information, and as a full senate and the
memory of all men as to so recent an afiair was a witness of
that feet ; as my clerks would have communicated the infor-
mation to you, my intimate friend and companion, if you
had wished for it, even before they had taken a copy of it;
when you saw that there were any incorrectnesses in it, why
were you silent, why did you permit them 1 Why did you
not make a complaint to me or to some friend of mine 1 or
why did you not at least, since you are so well inclined to
inveigh against your friends, expostulate passionately and
earnestly with me 1 Do you, when your voice was never once
heard at the time, when, though the information was read,
and copied out, and published, you kept silence then, — ^do
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392 -OICEBOS ORATIONS.
you, I say, now on a sadden dare to bring forward a stote-
ment of such importance 1 and to place yourself in such a
position that, before you can convict me of haying tampered
with the information, you must confess that you are convicted
yourself of the grossest negligence, on your own information
laid against yourself 1
XYI. Was the safety of any one of such consequence to
me as to induce me to forget my own ) or to make me con-
taminate the truth, which I had laid open, by any lie? Or do
you suppose that I would assist any one by whom I thought
that a cruel plot had been laid against the republic, and most
especially against me the consul 1 But if I had been forgetful
of my own severity and of my own virtue, was I so mad, as,
when letters axe things which have been devised for the sake
of posterity, in order to be a protection against foigetfiilness,
to think that the fresh recollection of the whole senate could
be beaten down by my journal 1 I have been bearing wiidi
you, 0 Torquatus, for a long time. I have been bearing with
you; and sometimes I, of my own accord, call back and
check my inclination, when it has been provoked to chastise
your speech. I make some allowance for your violent tem-
per, I have some indulgence for your youth, I yield somewhat
to our own Mendship, I have some regard to your father.
But imless you put some restraint upon yoqrself, you will
compel me to forget our friendship, in order to pay due regard
to my own dignity. No one ever attempted to attach the
slightest suspicion to me, that I did not defeat him ; but I
wiSb you to believe me in this; — ^those whom I think that I
can defeat most easily, are not those whom I take the greatest
pleasure in answering. Do you, since you are not at all igno-
rant of my ordinary way of speaking, forbear to abuse my
lenity. Do not think that the stings of my eloquence are
taken away, because they are sheathed. Do not think that
that power has been entirely lost, because I show some con-
sideration for, and indulgence towards you. In the first place,
the excuses which I make to myself for your injurious con-
duct, your violent temper, your age, and our friendship, have
much weight with me ; and, in the next place, I do not yet
consider you a person of suf&cient power to make it worth
my while to contend and argue with you. But if you were
more capable through age and experience, I should pursue
the conduct which is habitual to me when I have been pro-
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FOR P. SYLLA. 393
voked ; at present I will deal with you in such a way that I
shall seem to have received an injury rather than to have
requited one.
XVII. Nor, indeed, can I make out why you are angry with
ma If it is hecause I am defending a man whom you are
^ accusing, why should not I also be angry with you, for ac-
cusing a man whom I am defending ? " I," say you, " am
accusing my enemy." And I am defending my firiend. " But
you ought not to defend any one who is being tried for con-
spiracy." On the contrary, no one ought to be more prompt
to defend a man of whom he has never suspected any ill, than
he who has had many reasons for forming opinions about other
men. " Why did you give evidence against others Y* Because
I was compelled. " Why were they convicted 1" Because my
evidence was behoved. " It is behaving hke a king to speak
against whomsoever you please, and to defend whomsoever
you please." Say, rather, that it is slavery not to be able
to speak against any one you choose, and to defend any one
you choose. And if you begin to consider whether it was
more necessary for me to do this, or for you to do that, you
will perceive that you could with more credit fix a limit to
your enmities than I could to my humanity.
But when the greatest honours of your family were at stake,
that is to say, the consulship of your fether, that wise man
your father was not angry with hi most intimate friends for
defending and praising Sylla. He was aware that this was a
principle handed down to us from our ancestors, that we were
not to be hindered by our friendship for any one, from ward-
ing off dangers from others. And yet that contest was far
fit)m resembling this trial. Then, if Publius Sylla could be
put down, the consulship would be procured for your fether,
as it was procured ; it was a contest of honour ; you were
crying out, that you were seeking 'to recover what had been
taken from you, in order that, having been defeated in the
Campus Martins, you might succeed in the fonun. Then,
those who were contending against you for Sylla's safety, your
greatest friends, with whom you were not angry on that
account, deprived you of the consulship, resisted your acquisi-
tion of honour ; and yet they did so without any rupture of
your mutual friendship, without violating any duty, according
to ancient precedent and the established principles of every
good man.
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394 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
V
XVIII. But now what promotion of yours am I opposing %
or what dignity of yours am I throwing obstacles in the way
of? What is there which you can at present seek from this
proceeding 1 Honour has been conferred on your &ther ; the
insignia of honour have descended to you. You, adorned with
his spoils, come to tear the body of him whom you have slain;
I am defending and protecting him who is lying prostrate and
stripped of his arms. And on this you find fault with me,
and are angry because I defend him. But I not only am not
angry with you, but I do not even find fault with your pro-
ceeding. For I imagine that you have laid down a rule for
yourself as to what you thought that you ought to do, and
that you have appointed a very capable, judge of your duty.
" Oh, but the son of Caius Cornelius accuses him, and that
ought to have the same weight as if his father had given in-
formation against him." 0 wise Cornelius, — ^the fiither, I mean,
— ^who leffc all the reward which is usually given for informa-
tion, but has got all the discredit which a confession can involve,
through the accusation brought by his son ! However, what
is it that Cornelius gives information of by the mouth of that
boy ) If it is a part of the business which is unknown to^me,
but which has been communicated to Hortensius, let Hoiv
tensius reply. I^ as you say, his statement concerns that
crew of Autronius and Catiline, when they intended to commit
a massacre in the Campus Martins, at the consular comitia,
which were held by me ; we saw Autronius that day in the
Campus. And why do I say toe saw 1 I myself saw him —
(for you at that time, 0 judges, had no anxiety, no suspicions;
I, protected by a firm guard of friends at that time, checked
the forces and the endeavours of Catiline and Autronius). Is
there, then, any one who says that Sylla at that time had any
idea of coming into the Campus 1 And yet, if at that time he
had united himself with CatiUne in that society of wickedness,
why did he leave him ? why was not he with Autronius 1 why,
when their cases wer^ similar, are not similar proofe of crimi-
nality foimd ) But since Cornelius himself even now hesitates
about giving information against him, he, as you say, contents
himself with filling up the outline of his son's information.
What then does he say about that night, when, according to
the orders of Catiline, he came into the Scythemakers'* street,
to the house of Marcus Lecca, that night which followed the
^ This was the name of a street.
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FOR P. SYLLA. 395
sixth of Noyember, in my consulship 1 that night which of
all the moments of the conspiracy was the most terrible and
the most miserable. Then the day in which Catiline should
leave the city, then the terms on which the rest should remain
behind, then the arrangement and division of the whole city,
with regard to the conflagration and the massacre, was settled.
Then your father, 0 Cornelius, as he afterwards confessed,
begged for himself that especial employment of going the first
thing in the morning to salute me as consul, in order that,
having been admitted, according to my usual custom and to
the privilege which his friendship with me gave him, he might
slay me in my bed.
XIX. At this time, when the conspiracy was at its height;
when Catiline was starting for the army, and Lentulus was
being left in the city ; when Cassius was being appointed to
superintend the burning of the city, and Cethegus the mas-
sacre; when Autronius had the part allotted to him of
occupying Italy; when, in short, everything was being ar-
ranged, and settled, and prepared ; where, 0 Cornelius, was
Sylla 1 Was he at Rome 1 No, he was very far away. Was
he in those districts to which Catiline was betaking himself 1
He was still further from them. Was he in the Camertine,
or Picenian, or Gallic district ? lands which the disease, as it
were, of that frenzy had infected most particularly. Nothing
is further from the truth ; fbr he was, as I have said aheady,
at Naples. He was in ibst part of Italy which above idl
others was free from all suspicion of being implicated in that
business. What then does he state in his information, or
what does he allege, — I mean Cornelius, or you who bring
these messages from him? He says that gladiators were
bought, under pretence of some games to be exhibited by
Faustus, for the purposes of slaughter and tumult. —Just so ;
— ^the gladiators are mentioned whom we know that he
was bound to provide according to his fether's wilL " But
he seized on a whole household of gladiators ; and if he had
left that alone, some other troop might have discharged the
duty to which Faustus was boimd." I wish this troop
could satisfy not only the envy of parties imfevourable to
him, but even the expectations of reasonable men. " He
was in a desperate hurry, when the time for the exhibition
was still fer off" As if, in reality, the time for the exhi-
bition was not drawing very near. This household of slaves
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396 CICEBO'S OBATIONa
waa got without Faustus having any idea of such a step ;
for he neither knew of it» nor wished it. But there are
letters of Faustus's extant, in which he begs and prays
PubliTis Sylla to buy gladiators, and to buy this very troop :
and not only were such letters sent to Publius Sylla, but
they were sent also to Lucius Caesar, to Quintus Pompeius,
and to Caius Memmius, by whose advice the whole busi-
ness was managed. But Cornelius ^ was appointed to manage
the troop. If in the respect of the purchase of this
household of gladiators no suspicion attaches to the cir-
cumstances, it certainly can make no difference that he
was appointed to manage them afterwards. But still, he in
reality only discharged the servile duty of providing them
with arms; but he never did superintend the men them-
selves ; that duty was always discharged by Balbuff^ a Greed-
man of Faustus.
XX. But Sittius was sent by him into further Spain, in
order to excite sedition in that province. In the first place^
O judgeEf, Sittius departed, in the consulship of Lucius Julius
and Caius Figulus, some time before this mad business of
Catiline's, and. before there was any suspicion of this con-
spiracy. In the second place, he did not go there for the first
time, but he had already been there several years before, for
the same purpose that he went now. And he went, not only
with an object, but with a necessary object, having some im-
portant accoimts to settle with the king of Mauritania. But
then, after he was gone, as Sylla managed his affidrs as his
agent, he sold many of the most beautiful farms of Publius
Sittius, and by this means paid his debts ; so that the motive
whibh drove the rest to this wickedness, the desire, namely, of
retaining their possessions, did not exist in the case of Sittius,
who had diminished his landed property to pay his debts.
But now, how incredible, how absiu*d is the idea that a man
who wished to make a massacre at Rome, and to bum down
this city, should let hils most intimate friend depart, should
send him away into the most distant countries ! Did he so in
order the more easily to effect what he was endeavouring to
do at Rome, if there were seditions in Spain? — " But these
things were done independently, and had no connexion with
one another." Is it possible, then, that he should have thought
> This Cornelius is not the Boman knight mentioned before ; bat
■ome freedman of Publius Syila.
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FOR P. SYLLA. 397
it desirable, when engaged in such important affiiirs, in suoh
novel, and dangerous^ and seditious design£f, to send away a
man thoroughly attached to himself, his most intimate £riend,
one connected with himself by reciprocal good offices and by
constant intercotirse 1 It is not probable that he should send
away, when in difficulty, and in the midst of troubles of his
own raising, the man whom he had always kept with him in
times of prosperity and tranquillity.
But is Sittius himself (for I must not desert the cause of
my old friend and host) a man of such a character, or of such
a femily and such a school, as to allow us to believe that he
wished to make war on the republic ? Can we believe that
he, whose father, when all our other neighbours and bor-
derers revolted from us, behaved with singular duty and
loyalty to our republic, should think it possible himself to
.undertake a neferious war against his country 1 A man whose
debts we see were contracted, not out of luxury, but from
a desire to increase his property, which led him to involve
himself in- business ; and who, though he owed debts at Home,
had very large debts owing to him in the provinces and in
the confederate kingdoms ; and when he was applying for
them he would not jdlow his agents to be put in any difficulty
by his absence, but preferred having all his property sold,
and being stripped himself of a most beautiful patrimony, to
allowing any delay to take place in satisfying his creditors.
And of men of that sort I never, 0 judges, had any fear
when I was in the middle of that tempest which afflicted the
republic. The sort of men who were formidable and terrible,
were those who clung to their property with such affection
that you would say it was easier to tear their limbs from them
than their lands ; but Sittius never thought that there was
such a relationship between him and his estates ; and there-
fore he cleared himself, not only from all suspicion of such
wickedness as theirs, but even from being ta^ed about, not
by arms, but at the expense of his patrimony.
XXI. But now, as to what he adds, that the inhabitants of
Pompeii were excited by Sylla to join that conspiracy and
that abominable wickedness, what sort of statement that is
I am quite unable to understand. Do the people of Pompeii
appear to have joined the conspiracy? Who has ever said so 1
or when was there the slightest suspicion of this fact 1 " He
separated then," says he, " from the settlers, in order that when
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398 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
he had excited dissensions and divisions within^ he might
be able to have the town and nation of Pompeii in his power."
In the first place, every circumstance of the dissension be-
tween the natives of -Pompeii and the settlers was referred
to the patrons of the town, being a matter of long standings
and having been going on many years. In the second place,
the matter was investigated by the patrons in such a way,
that Sylla did not in any particular disagree with the opi-
nions of the others. And lastly, the settlers themselves
understand that the natives of Pompeii were not more de-
fended by Sylla than they themselves were. And this, 0
judges, you may ascertain from the number of settlers, most
honourable men, here present; who are here now, and are
anxious and above all things desirous that the man, the
patron, the defender, the guardian of that colony, (if they
have not been able to see him in the safe enjoyment of
every sort of good fortune and every honour,) may at aU
events, in the present misfortune by which he is attacked,
be defended and preserved by your means. The natives of
Pompeii are here also with equal eagerness, who are accused
as well as he is by the prosecutors ; men whose differences
with the settlers about walks ^d ^bout votes have not gone
to such lengths as to make them differ also about fiieir
common safety. And even this virtue of Publius Sylla
appears to me to be one which ought not to be passed over in
silence ; — that though that colony was originally settled by
him, and though the fortime of the Eoman people has sepa-
rated the interests of the settlers from the fortunes of the
native citizens of Pompeii, he is still so popular among, and
so much beloved by both parties, that he seems not so much
to have dispossessed the one party of their lands as to have
settled both of them in that coimtry.
XXII. " But the gladiators, and aU those preparations for
violence, were got together because of the motion of Cseci-
lius." And then he inveighed bitterly against Cfiecilius, a
most virtuous and most accomplished man, of whose virtue
and constancy, 0 judges, I will only say thus much, — ^that he
behaved in such a manner with respect to that motion which
he brought forward, not for the purpose of doing away with,
but only of relieving his brother's misfortime, that, though he
wished to consult his brother's welfere, he was imwilling to
oppose the interests of the repubhc; he proposed his law
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FOR P. 8TLLA. 399
inder the impulse of brotherly aflfection, and he abandoned it
because he was dissuaded from it by his brother's authority.
And Sylla is accused by Lucius Ceecilius, in that business in
which both of them deserve praise. In the first place Cseci-
lius, for haying proposed a law by which he appeared to wish
to rescind an imjust decision ; and SyUa, who reproved him,
and chose to abide by the decision. For the constitution of
the republic derives its principal consistency from formal
legal decisions. Nor do I think that any one ought to yield
so much to his love for his brother as to think only of the
wel&re of his own relations, and to neglect the common safety
of all. He did not touch the decision already given, but
he took away the punishment for bribery which had been
lately established by recent laws. And, therefore, by this
motion he was seeking, not to rescind a decision, but to
correct a defect in the law. When a man is complaining of a
penalty, it is not the decision with which he is finding feult,
but the law. For the conviction is the act of judges, and that
is let stand ; the penalty is the act of the law, and that may
be lightened. Do not, therefore, alienate from your cause
the inclinations of those orders of men which preside over the
courts of justice with the greatest authority and dignity. No
one has attempted to annul the decision which has been
given ; nothing of-that sort has been proposed. What Cseci-
lius always thought while grieved at lie calamity which had
befellen his brother, was, that the power of the judges ought
to be preserved unimpaired, but that the severity of the law
required to be mitigated.
XXIII. But why need I say more on this topic 1 I might
speak perhaps, and I would speak willingly and gladly, if
affection and fraternal love had impelled Lucius Csecilius a
little beyond the limits which regular and strict duty requires
of a man ; I would appeal to your feelings, I would invoke
the affection which every one feels for his own relations ; I
would solicit pardon for the error of Lucius Csecilius, from
your own inmost th(Jughts and from the common humanity of
aU men. The law was proposed only a few days ; it was never
begun to be put in train to be carried ; it was laid on the table
in the senate. On the first of January, when we had sum-
moned the senate to meet in the Capitol, nothing took/prece-
dence of it ; and Quintus Metellus the prsetor said, that what
he was saying was by the command of Sylla j that Sylla did
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400 CnCEBO^S ORATIONS.
not wish such a motion to be brought forward respecting bis
case. From tibat time forward Csecilius applied himself to
many measures for the advantage of the republic ; he declared
that he by his intercession would stop the agrarian law, which
was in eyeiy part of it denounced and defeated by me. He
resisted infiunous attempts at corruption ; he never threw
any obstacles in the way of the authority of the senate. He
behaved himself in his tribuneship in such a manner, that,
la3dng aside all r^ard for his own domestic concerns, he
thought of nothing for the future butthewelfereof the republic.
And even in regard to this very motion, who was there of us
who had any fears of Sylla or Csecilius attempting to carry
any point by violence 1 Did not all the alarm &at existed at
that time, sJl the fear and expectation of sedition, arise from
the villany of Autronius? It was his expressions and his
threats which were bruited abroad ; it was the sight of him,
the multitudes that thronged to him, the crowd that escorted
him, and the bands of his abandoned followers, that caused all
the fear of sedition which agitated us. Therefore, Publius
Sylla, as this most odious man was then his comrade and
partner, not only in honour but also in misfortune, was com-
pelled to lose his own good fortune, and to remain under a
cloud without any remedy or alleviation.
XXIV. At this point you are constantly reading passages
from my letter, which I sent to CnsBus Pompeius about my
own achievements, and about the general state of the republic;
and out of it you seek to extract some charge against Publius
Sylla. And because I wrote that an attempt of incredible
madness, conceived two years before, had broken out in my
consulship, you say that I, by this expression, have proved
that Sylla was in the former conspiracy. I suppose I think
that CnsBus Piso, and Catiline, and Yargunteius were not able
to do any wicked or audacious act by themselves, without the
aid of Publius Sylla 1 But even if any one had had a doubt
on that subject before, would he have tiiought (as you accuse
him of having done) of descending, after the murder of your
father, who was then consul, into the Campus on the first of
January with the lictors 1 This suspicion, in fSw^t, you removed
yourself, when you said that he had prepared an armed band
and cherished violent designs against your father, in order to
make Catihne consul. And if I grant you this, then you must
grant to me that Sylla, when he was voting for Catiline, had
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FOR P. SYLLA. 401
no thoxigbts of recovering by violence his own consulship^
which he had lost by a judicial decision. For his character
is not one, Q judges, which is at all liable to the imputation
of such enormous, of such atrocious criqies.
For I will now proceed, after I have refuted all the charges
against him, by an arrangement contrary to that which is
usually adopted, to speak of the general coiurse of life and
habits of my client. In truth, at the beginning I was eager
to encounter the greatness of the accusation, to satisfy the ex-
pectations of- men, and to say something also of myself since
I too had been accused. But now I must call you back to*
that point to which the cause itself, even if I said nothings
would compel you to direct all your attention.
XXV. In every case, 0 judges, which is of more serious
importance than usual, we must judge a good deal as to what
every one has wished, or intended, or done, not from the-
counts of the indictment, but from the habits of the person
who is accused. For no one of us can have his character-
modelled in a moment, nor can any one's course of life be
altered, or his natural disposition changed on a sudden.^
Survey for a moment in your mind's eye, 0 judges, (to say
nothing of other instances,) these very men who were impli-
cated in this wickedness. Catiline conspu-ed against the re-
public. Whose ears were ever unwilling to believe in this
attempt on the part of a man who had spent his whole life,
from his boyhood upwards, not only in intemperance and de-
bauchery, but who had devoted all his energies and all his-
zeal to every sort of enormity, and lust, and bloodshed ? Who'
marvelled fliat that man (fied fighting against his coimtry,,
whom all men had^ always thought born for civil war 1 Who is
there that recollects the way in which Lentulus was a partner
of informers, or the insanity of his caprices, or his perverse
and impious superstition, who can wonder tiiat he cherished
either wicked designs, or insane hopes 1 Who ever thinks of
Caius Cethegus and his expedition into Spain, and the wound
inflicted on Quintus Metellus Pius, without seeing that a
prison was built on purpose to be the scene of his punishment 1
I say nothing of the rest, that there may be some end to my
instances. I only ask you, silently to recollect all those men
who are proved to have been in this conspiracy. You wiU
see that every one of those men was convicted by his own
manner of life, before he was condemned by our suspicion.
VOL. II. D D
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402 OICERO'S ORATIONS.
And as for Autronius himself, (since his name is the most
nearly connected with the danger in which my client is, and
with the accusation which is brought against him,) did not
the manner in which he had spent all his early life convict
him ] He had always been audacious, violent, profligate. We
know that in defending himself in charges of adultery, he was
accustomed to use not only the most infeimous language, but
even his flsts and his feet. We know that he had been ac-
customed to drive men from their estates, to murder his neigh-
>bours, to plunder the temples of the allies, to disturb the courts
of justice by violence and arms ; in prosperity to despise every
body, in adversity to fight against all good men ; never to
regard the interests of the republic, and not to yield even to
fortune herself. Even if he were not convicted by the most
irresistible eyidence, still his own habits and his past life would
convict him.
XXVI. Come now, compare with those men the life of Pub-
lius Sylla, well known as it is to you and to all the Eoman
people ; and place it, 0 judges, as it were before your eyes. Has
there ever been any act or exploit of his which has seemed to
any one, I will not say audacious, but even rather inconsiderate ?
Do I say any act ? Has any word ever fellen from his lips
by which any one could be offended 1 Ay, even in that terrible
and disorderly victory of Lucius Sylla, who was found more
gentle or more merciful than Publius Sylla? How many
men's wives did he not save by begging them of Lucius
Sylla I How many men are there of the highest rank and of
the greatest accomplishments, both of our order and of the
equestrian body, for whose safety he laid himself imder obliga-
tions to Lucius Sylla ! whom I might name, for they have no
objection ; indeed they are here to countenance him now, with
the most grateful feelings towards him. But, because that
service is a greater one than one citizen ought to be able to do
to another, I entreat of you to impute to the times the fact
of his having such power, but to give h^m himself the credit
due to his having exerted it in such a manner. Why need
I speak of the other virtues of his life ? of his dignity ) of his
liberality) of his moderation in his own private affidrs 1 of his
splendour on public occasions ? For, though in these points he
has been crippled by forttme, yet the good foundations laid by
nature are visible. What a house was his ! what crowds fre-
quented it daily ! How great was the dignity of his behaviour
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FOR P. BTLLA. 403
to his friends 1 How great was their attachment to him ! What
a multitude of friends had he of every order of the people !
These things, which had been built up by long time and much
labour, one Eongle hour deprived him of. Publius Sylla,
0 judges, received a terrible and a mortal wound ; but still it
was an iiyuiy of such a sort as his way of Hfe and his natural
disposition might seem liable to be exposed to. He was judged
to have too great a desire for honour and dignity. If no one
else was supposed to have such desires in standing for the
consulship, then he was judged to be more covetous than the
rest. But if this desire for the consulship has existed in some
other men also, then, perhaps, fortune was a little more un-
fevourable to him than to others. But, after this misfortune,
who ever saw Publius Sylla otherwise than grieving, dejected,
and out of spirits 1 Who ever suspected that he was avoiding
the sight of men and the light of day, out of hatred, and not
rather out of shame ? For, though he had many temptations
to frequent this city and the forum, by reason of the great
attachment of his friends to him, — the only consolation which
remained to him in his misfortunes, — still he kept out
of your sight; and though he might have remained her^
as far aj9 the law went, he almost condemned himself ti
banishment.
XXYJI. In such modest conduct as this, 0 judges, and in
such a ufe as this, will you believe that there was any room '
left for such enormous wickedness ? Look at the man him-
self; behold hiff countenance. Compare the accusation with
his course of life. Compare his life, which has been laid open
before you from his birth up to this day, with this accusation.
1 say nothing of the republic, to which Sylla has always been
most devoted. Did he wish these friends of his, being such
men as they are, so attached to him, by whom his prosperity
had been lormerly adorned, by whom his adversity is now
comforted and reheved, to perish miserably, in order that he
himself might be at liberty to pass a most miserable and
infamous existence in company with Lentulus, and CatiHne,
and Ceth^us, with no other prospect for the future but a
disgraceful death ? That suspicion is not consistent, — ^it is,
I say, utterly at variance with such habits, with such modesiy,
with such a life as his, with the man himself That sprang
up, a perfectly unexampled sort of barbarity ; it was an incre-
dible and amazing insanity. The foulness of that unheard-of
.dd2
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404 CICEBO'S ORATIONS.
wickedness broke out on a sadden, taking its rise from the
conntless vices of profligate men accumulated ever since their
youth.
Think not, 0 judges, that that violence and that attempt
was the work of hxmian beings ; for no nation ever was so
barbarous or so savage, as to have (I will not say so many,
but even) one impla<»ble enemy to his coimtry. They were
some savage and ferocious b^ists, bom of monsters, and
clothed in human form. Look again and again, 0 judges;
for there is nothii^ too violent to be said in such a cause as
this. Look deeply and thoroughly into the minds of Catiline,
Autronius, Ceth^us, Lentulus, and the rest. What lusts you
will find in these men, what crimes, what baseness, what auda-
city, what incredible insanity, what marks of wickedness, what
traces of parricide, what heaps of enormous guilt I Out of
the great diseases of the republic, diseases of long standings
which had been given over as hopeless, suddenly that violence
broke out; in such a way, that when it was put down and got
rid o^ the state might again be able to become convalescent
and to be cured ; for there is no one who thinks that if those
pests remained in the republic, the constitution could con-
tinue to exist any longer. Therefore they were some Furies
who urged them on, not to complete their wickedness, but to
atone to the republic for their guilt by their punishment.
XXVIII. WlQ you then, 0 judges, now turn back Publius
Sylla into this band of rascals, out of that band of honourable
men who are living and have lived as his associates ? Will
you transfer him from this body of citizens, 'and from the
femiliar dignity in which he lives with them, to the party of
impious men, to that crew and company of parricides ? What
then will become of that most impregnable defence of modesty!
in what respect will the purity of our past lives be of any use
to us 1 For what time is the reward of the character which
a man has gained to be reserved, if it is to desert him at his
utmost need, and when he is engaged in a contest in which
all his fortimes are at stake — if it is not to stand by him and
help him at such a crisis as this 1 Our prosecutor threatens
us with the examinations and torture of our slaves ; and
though we do not suspect that any danger can arise to us
from them, yet pain reigns in those tortures; much de-
pends on the nature of every one's mind, and the fortitude of
a person's body. The inquisitor manages everything; caprice
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FOR P. STLLA. 405
regulates much, hope corrupts them, fear disables them, so
that, in the straits in which they are placed, there is but little
room left for truth.
Is the life of Publius Sylla, then, to be put to the torture?
is it to be examined to see what lust is concealed beneath it ?
whether any crime is lurking under it, or any cruelty, or any
audacity 1 There will be no mistake in our cause, 0 judges,
no obscurity, if the voice of his whole life, which ought to be
of the very greatest weight, is listened to by you. In this
cause we fear no witness; we feel sure that no one knows, or
has ever seen, or has ever heard anything against us. But
still, if the consideration of the fortime of Pubhus Sylla has
no eflfect on you, 0 judges, let a regard for your own fortune
weigh with you. For this is of Sie greatest importance to
you who have lived in the greatest el^ance and safety, that
the causes of honourable men should not be judged of ac-
cording to the caprice, or enmity, or worthlessness of the
witnesses; but that in important investigations and sudden
dangers, the life of every man should be the most credible
witness. And do not you, 0 judges, abandon and expose it,
stripped of its arms, and defenceless, to envy and suspicion.
Fortify the common citadel of all good men, block up the
ways of escape resorted to by the wicked. Let that witness
be of the greatest weight in procuring either safety or pimish-
ment for a man, which is the only one that, from its own
intrinsic nature, can with ease be thoroughly examined, and
which cannot be suddenly altered and remodelled.
XXIX. What? Shall this authority, (for I must con-
tinually speak of that, though I will speak of it with timidity
and moderation,) — shall, I say, this authority of mine, when
I have kept aloof from the cause of every one else accused
of' thi» conspiracy, and have defended Sylla alone, be of no
service to my client ? This is perhaps a bold thing to say,
O judges; a bold thing, if we are asking for anything; a bold
thing, i^ when every one else is silent about us, we will not be
uilent ourselves. But if we are attacked, if we are accused,
if we are sought to be rendered unpopular, then surely, O
judges, you will allow us to retain our liberty, even if we
cannot quite retain all our dignity. All the men of consular
rank are accused at one swoop ; so that the name of the most
honourable office in the state appears now to carry with it
more unpopularity than dignity. " They stood by Catiline,"
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406 CIOBROS ORATIONS.
says he, " and praised him." At that time there was no con-
spiracy known of or discovered. They were defending a Mend.
They were giving their suppliant' the coimtenance of their
presence. They did not think the moment of his most im-
minent danger a fit time to reproach him with the infiamy of
his life. Moreover, even your own fether, 0 Torquatus, when
consul, was the advocate of Catiline when he was prosecuted
on a charge of extortion : he knew he was a bad man, but he
was a suppliant*; perhaps he was an audacious man, but he
had once been his friend. And, as he stood by him after
information of that first conspiracy had been laid before him,
he showed that he had heard something about him, but that
he had not believed it. " But he did not countenance him
by his presence at the other trial, when the rest did." If he
himself had afterwards learnt something, of which he had
been ignorant when consul, still we must pardon those men
who had heard nothing since that time. But if the first
accusation had weight, it ought not to have had more weight
when it was old than when it was fresh. But if your parent,
even when he was not without suspicion of danger to himself
was still induced by pity to do honour to the defence of a most
worthless man by his curule chair, by his own private dig-
nity, and by that of his office as consul, then what reason Ss
there for reproaching the men of consular rank who gave
Catiline the countenance of their presence 1 " But the same
men did not countenance those who 'were tried for their
accession to this conspiracy before Sylla." Certainly not;
they resolved that no aid, no assistance, no support ought to
be given by them to men implicated in such wickedness. And
that I may speak for a moment of their constancy and attach-
ment to the republic, whose silent virtue and loyalty bears
witness in behalf of every one of them, and needs no orna-
ments of language from any one, — can any one say that any
time there were men of consular rank more virtuous, more ^
fearless, or more firm, than those who Hved in these critical
and perilous times, in which the republic was nearly over-
whelmed 1 Who of them did not, with the great-est openness,
and bravery, and earnestness, give his whole thoughts to the
common safety 1 Nor need I confine what I say to the men
of consular rank. For this credit is due to all those accom^
plished men who have been prsetors, and indeed to the whole
senate in common; so that it is plain that never, in the
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POB P. BTLLA. 407
memory of man, was there more virtue in that order, greater
attachment to the republic, or more consummate wisdom.
But because the men of consular rank were especially men-
tioned, I thought I ought to say thus much in their behalf;
and that that would be enough, as the recollection of all men
would join me in bearing witness, that there was not one man
of that rank who did not labom: with all his virtue, and
energy, and influence, to preserve the republic.
XXX. But what comes next ? Do I, who never praised
Catiline, who never as consul countenanced Catiline when he
was on his trial, who have given evidence respecting the con-
spiracy against others,^-do I seem to you so fkr removed from
sanity, so forgetful of my own consistency, so forgetful of all
the exploits which I have performed, as, though as consul
I waged war against the conspirators, now to wish to pre-
serve their leader, and to bring my mind now to defend the
cause and the life of that same man whose weapon I lately
blunted, and whose flames I have but just extinguished? I^ 0
judges, the republic itself, which has been preserved by my
labours and dangers, did not by its dignity recal me to
wisdom and consistency, still it is an instinct implanted by
nature, to hate for ever the man whom you have once feared,
with whom you have contended for life and fortune, and frt)m
whose plots you have escaped. But when my chief honours
and the great glory of ^ all my exploits are at stake ; when, as
often as any one is convicted of any participation in this
wickedness, the recollection of the safety of the city having
been secured by me is renewed, shall I be so mad as to allow
those things which I did in behalf of the common safety to
appear now to have been done by me more by chance and by
good fortune than by virtue and wisdom ? " What, then, do
you meani Do you," some one will say, perhaps, " claim that
a man shall be ju(%ed innocent, just because you have de-
fended him ? " But I, 0 judges, not only claim nothing for
myself to which any one can object, but I even give up and
abandon pretensions which are granted and allowed pie by
every one. I am not living in such a republic, — I have
not exposed my life to all sorts of dangers for the sake of my
coimtry at such a time, — they whom I have defeated are not
so utterly extinct, — nor are those whom I have preserved so
grateful, that I should think it safe to attempt to assume
more than all my enemies and enviers may endure It would
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408 CIOEBO'S OBATIONS.
appear an ofifbnsive thing for him who investigated the con«
spiracy, who laid it open, who crushed it, whom the senate
thanked in unprecedented language, to whom the senate de-
creed a supplication, which they had never decreed to any one
before for civil services, to say in a court of justice, " I would
not have defended him if he had been a conspirator." I do
not say that, because it might be offensive ; I say this, which
in these trials relating to ^e conspiracy I may claim a right
to say, speaking not with authority but with modesty, " I who
investigated and chastised that conspiracy would certainly not
defend Sylla, if I thought that he had been a conspirator."
I, 0 judges, say this, which I said at the beginning, that when
I was making a thorough inquiry into those great dangers
which were threatening everybody, when I was hearing many
things, not believing everything, but guarding against every-
thing, not one word was said to me by any one who gave
information, nor did any one hint any suspicion, nor was
there the lightest mention in any one's letters, of Publius
Sylla.
XXXI. Wherefore I call you, 0 gods of my country and
of my household, to witness, — ^you who preside over this city
and this empire, — you who have preserved this empire, and
these our liberties, and the Roman people, — ^youwho by your
divine assistance protected these houses and temples when I
was consul, — ^that I, with a free and honest heart, am defending
the cause of Publius Sylla ; that no crime has been concealed
by me knowingly, that no wickedness undertaken against the
general safety has been kept back or defended by me. I, when
consul, found out nothing about this man, I suspected nothings
I heard of nothing. Therefore I, the same person who have
seemed to be vehement against some men, inexorable towards
the rest of the conspirators, (I paid my country what I owed
her; what I am now doing is due to my own invariable habits
and natural disposition,) am as merciful, 0 judges, as you
yourselves. I am as gentle as the most soft-hea]^ed among
yoiL As far as I was vehement in union with you, I did
nothing except what I was compelled to do : I came to the
assistance of the republic when in great danger ; I raised my
sinking country; influenced by pity for the whole body of
citizens, we were then as severe as was necessary. The ssdTety
of all men would have been lost for ever in one night, if that
severity had not been exercised ; but as I was led on to tho
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FOB P. SYLLA. 409
punishment of wicked men by my attachment to the repubKc,
80 now I am led to secure the safety of the innocent by my
own inclination.
I see, 0 judg^ that in this Publius Sylla there is nothing
worthy of hatred, and many circumstances deserving our pity.
For he does not now, 0 judges, flee to you as a suppliant for
the sake of warding off calamity from himself but to prevent
his whole fomily and name from being branded with the
stigma of nefarious baseness. For as for himself even if he
be acquitted by your decision, what honours has he, what
comforts has he for the rest of his life, in which he can find
delight or enjoyment? His house, I suppose, will be adorned;
the images of his ancestors will be displayed ; he himself will
resume his ornaments and his usual dres& AH these things,
0 judges, are lost to him ; all the insignia and ornaments of
his &mily, and his name, and his honour, were lost by the
calamity of that one decision. But he is anxious not to be
called the destroyer, the betrayer, the enemy of his^ country ;
he is fearful of leaving such disgrace to a family of such
renown ; he is anxious that this unhappy child may not be
called the son of a conspirator, a criminal, and a traitor. He
fears for this boy, who is much dearer to him than his own
life, anxious, though he cannot leave him the undiminished
inheritance of his honours, at all events not to leave him the
undying recollection of his infamy. This little child entreats
you, 0 judges, to allow him occasionally to congratulate his
father, if not with his fortunes unimpaired, at least to con-
gratulate him in his affliction. The roads to the courts of
justice and to the forum are better known to that imhappy
boy, than the roads to his playgroimd or to his school. I am
contending now, 0 judges, not for the life of Publius Sylla,
but for his burial. His life was taken from him at the former
trial ; we are now striving to prevent his body from being cast
out. For what has he left which need detain him in this life?
or what is there to make any one think such an existence life
at all?
XXXII. Lately, Publius Sylla was a man of such considera-
tion in the state, that no one thought himself superior to him
either in honour, or in influence, or in good fortune. Now,
stripped of all his dignity, he does not seek to recover what •
has been taken away from him ; but he does entreat you, 0
judgefif, not to take from him the little which fortune hsia left
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410 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
him in his disasters, — ^namely, the pennission to bewail his
calamities in oompany with his parent, with his children^ with
his brother, and with his fiiends. It would be becoming for
even you yourself, 0 Torquatus, to be by this time satisfied
with the miseries of my client Although you had taken
nothing from Sylla except the consulship, yet you ought to be
content with that. For it was a contest for honour, and not
enmity, which originally induced you to take up this cause.
But now that, together with his honour, everything else has
been taken from him, — ^now that he is desolate, crushed by
this miserable and grievous fortune, what is there which you
can wish for more 1 Do you wish to deprive him of the en-
joyment of the light of day, full as it is to him of tears and
grief, in which he now lives amid the greatest grief and tor-
ment ? He would gladly give it up, if you would release him
from the foul imputation of this most odious crime. Do
you seek to banish him as an enemy, when, if you were really
hard-hearted, you would derive greater enjoyment from seeing
his miseries than from hearing of them 1 Oh, wretched and
imhappy was that day on which Pubhus Sylla was declared
consul by all the centuries ! 0 how false were the hopes 1 how
fleeting the good fortune ! how bhnd the desire ! how unrea-
sonable the congratulations ! How soon was all that scene
changed from joy and pleasure to mourning and tears, when
he, who but a short time before had been consul elect, had on
a sudden no trace left of his previous dignity. For what evil
was there which seemed then to be wanting to him when he
was thus stripped of honour, and &me, and fortune ? or what
room could there be left for any new calamity 1 The same
fortune continues to pursue him which followed him from the
first ; she finds a new source of grief for him ; she will not
allow an unfortunate man to perish when he has been afflicted
in only one way, and by only one disaster.
XXXIII. But now, 0 judges, I am hindered by my own
grief of mind from saying any more about the misery of
my client. That consideration belongs to you, 0 judge&
I rest the whole cause on your mercy and your hmnanity.
You, after a rejection of several judges, of which we had no
suspicion, have sat as judges suddenly appointed to hear our
cause, having been chosen by our accusers from their hopes of
your severity, bu^ having been also given to us by fortune as
the protectors of our innooenoe. As I have been anxious as
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VOB A. L. ABOHIAS. 411
to wbat the Roman people thought of me, because I had
been severe towards wicked men^ and so have imdertaken the
first defence of an innocent man that was offered to me, so
do you also mitigate that severity of the courts of justice
which has been exerted now for some months against the
most audacious of men, by your lenity and mercy. The cause
itself ought to obtain this from you ; and besides, it is due to
your virtue and courage to show that you are not the men to
whom it is most advisable for an accuser to apply after having
rejected other judges. And in leaving the matter to your
decision, 0 judges, I exhort you, with all the earnestness that
my affection for you warrants me in using, so to act that we,
by our common zeal, (since we are united in the service of
the republic,) and you, by your humanity and mercy, may
repel from us both the Mse charge of cruelty.
THE SPEECH OP M. T. CICERO FOR AULUS LICINIUS
ARCHIAS, THE POET.
THB ABaUMBNT.
Archias was a Qreek poet, a natiye of Antioch, who came to Rome m the
train of Lucullus, when Cicero was a child. He assumed the names of
Aulus and Licinius, the last out of compliment to the Lucnlli, and Cioero
had been for some time a pupil of his, and had retained a great regard
for him. A man of the name of Qracchus now prosecuted him as a fehte
pretender to the rights of a Roman citizen, according to the provisions
of the lex Papiricu But Cicero contends that he is justified bj that
very law, for Archias before coming to Rome had stayed at Heraclea,
a confederate citj, and had been enrolled as a Heraclean citizen ; and
in the lex Papiria it was expressly proyided that those who were on
the register of any confederate city as its citizens, if they were residing
in Italy at the time the law was passed, and if they made a return of
themselves to the praetor within sixty days, were to be exempt from
its operation. However, the greatest part of this oration is occupied, .
not in legal arguments, but in a panegyric on Archias, who is believed
to have died soon afterwards ; and he must have been a very old man
at the time that it was spoken, as it was nearly forty years previously
that he had first come to Rome.
I. If there be any natural ability in me, 0 judges, — and I
know how slight that is; or if I have any ^practice as a
speaker, — ^and in that line I do not deny that I have some
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412 OICBBO'S OBATIONS.
experience ; or if I have any method m my oratory, drawn
from my study of the liberal sciences, and from that carefril
training to which I admit that at no part of my life have
I ever been disinclined; certainly, of all those qualities, this
Aulus Licinius is entitled to be among the first to claim the
benefit fix)m me as his peculiar right. For as &r as ever my
mind can look back upon the space of time that is past, and
recal the memory of its earliest youth, tracing my life from
that starting-point, I see that Archias was the principal cause
of my undertaking, and the principal means of my mastering,
those studies. And if this voice of mine, formed by hiis
encouragement and his precepts, has at times been the instru-
ment of safety to others, undoubtedly we ought, as far as lies
in our power, to help and save the very man from whom we
have received that gift which has enabled us to bring help to
many and salvation to some. And lest any one should, per-
chance, marvel at this being said by me, as the chief of his
ability consists in something else, and not in this system and
practice of eloquence, he must be told that even we our-
selves have never been wholly devoted to this study. In
truth, all the arts which concern the civilising and human-
ising of men, have some link which binds them together,
and are, as it were, connected by some relationship to one
another.
II. And, that it may not appear marvellous to any one of
you, that I, in a formal proc€^ng like this, and in a regular
court of justice, when an action is being tried before a prsetor
of the Boman people, a most eminent man, and before most
impartial judges, before such an assembly and multitude of
people as I see around me, employ this style of speakings
which is at variance, not only with the ordinary usages of
courts of justice, but with the general style of forensic
pleading; I entreat you in this cause to grant me this in-
dulgence, suitable to this defendant, and as I trust not dis-
agreeable to you, — ^the indulgence, namely, of allowing me;,
when speaking in defence of a most sublime poet and most
learned man, before this concourse of highly4ducated citi
zens, before this most polite and accompli^ed assembly, and
before such a praetor as him who is presiding at this tnal, to
enlarge with a little more freedom than usual on the study of
polite Hterature and refined arts, and, speaking in the character
of such a man as that, who, owing to the tranquilli^ of his
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FOB A. L. ABOHIAS. 413
life and the studies to which he has devoted himself^ has but
little experience of the dangers of a court of justice, to
employ a new and unusual style of oratory. And if I feel
that liiat indulgence is given and allowed me by you, I will
soon cause you to think that this Aulus Licinius is a man
who not only, now that he is a citizen, does not deserve to be
expunged from the list of citizens, but that he is worthy, even
if he were not one, of being now made a citizen.
III. For when first Archias grew out of childhood, and
out of the studies of those arts by which young boys are
gradually trained and refined, he devoted himself to the
study of writing. First of all at Antioch, (for he was bom
there, and was of high rank there,) formerly an illustrious
and wealthy city, and the seat of learned men and of liberal
sciences ; and there it was his lot speedily to show himself
superior to all in ability and credit. Afterwards, in the other
parts of Asia, and over all Greece, his arrival was so talked of
wherever he came, that the anxiety with which he was
expected was even greater than the fame of his genius ; but
the admiration which he excited when he had arrived, ex-
ceeded even the anxiety with which he was expected. Italy
was at that time fiill of Greek science and of Greek systems,
and these studies were at that time cultivated in Latium with
greater zeal than they now are in the same towns; and here
too at Bome, on accoimt of the tranquil state of the republic
at that time, they were far from n^lected. Therefore, the
people of Tarentum, and Eh^iun, and Neapolis, presented
him with the freedom of the city and with other ^fts; and
all men who were capable of jud^g of genius thought him
deserving of their acquaintance and hospi^ty. When, from
this great celebrity of his, he had become known to us
though absent, he came to Eome, in the consulship of Marius
and Catulus. It was his lot to have those men as his j&rst^ con-
suls, the one of whom could supply him with the most illustri-
ous achievements to write about, the other could give him, not
only exploits to celebrate, but his ears and judicious atten-
tion. Immediately the LucuUi, though Archias was as yet
but a youth,* received him in their house. But it was not
1 The Latin ia prcBtextcUua. Before he had exchanged the prtBtexta
for the toga viruis. It has generally been thought that the age at
which this exchange was made was seventeen, but Professor Long, the
highest possible authority on all subjects of Latin literature, and
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414 OICEBO'S ORATIONS.
only to his genius and his learning, but also to his natmal
disposition and Tirtue, that it must be attributed that the
house which was the first to be opened to him in his youth, is
also the one in which he lives most familiarly in his old age.
He at that time gained the affection of Quintus Metellu%
that great man who was the conqueror of Numidia, and his
son Pius. He was eagerly listened to by Marcus JEmilius ;
he associated with Quintus Catulus, — ^both with the father and
the sons. He was highly respected by Lucius Crassus ; and as
for the Luculli, and Drusus, and the Octavii, and Cato, and
the whole &mily of the Hortensii, he was on terms of the
greatest possible intimacy with all of them, and was held by
5iem in the greatest honour. For, not only did every one
cultivate his acquaintance who wished to learn or to hear
anything^ but even every one pretended to have such a
desire.
IV. In the meantime, after a sufl&ciently long interval,
having gone with Lucius LucuUus into Sicily, and having
after^mrds departed from that province in the company of the
same LucuUus, he came to Heraclea. And as that city was
one which enjoyed all the rights of a confederate city to their
full extent, he became desirous of being enrolled as a citizen
of it. And, being thought deserving of such a fevour for his
own sake, when aided by the influence and authority of
LucuUus, he easUy obtained it from the Heracleans. The
freedom of the city was given him in accordance with the
provisions of the law of SUvanus and Carbo : " If any men
had been enroUed as citizens of the confederate cities, and i£,
at the time that the law was passed, they had a residence in
Italy, and if within sixty days they had made a return of
themselves to the praetor.** As he had now had a residence
at Home for many years, he returned himself as a citizen to
the prsetor,' Quintus MeteUus, his most intimate friend. If
especially on Eoman law, says, (Smith, Dicfc. Ant y. Impubest) "The
toga virtlis was assumed, at the Liberalia in the month of March ; and
though no age appears to have been positively fixed for the ceremony,
it probably took place, as a general rule, on the feast which next foUowed
the completion of the fourteenth year, though it is certain that the com-
pletion of the fourteenth year was not always the time observed.** Bren
supposing Archias to have been seventeen, it appears rather an early
age for him to have established such a reputation as Cicero speaks d,
and perhaps, as not being at that time aRoman citizen, he probabljdid not
wear the prcetexta at all ; the expression is not to be taken literally, but
we are merely to understand generallj that he was quite a young man.
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FOB A. L. ABOHIAS. 415
we have nothing else to speak about except the rights of citi-
Eenship and the law, I need say no more. The cause is over.
For which of all these statements, 0 Gratius^ can be invali-
dated? Will you deny that he was enrolled, at the time I
speak of^ as a citizen of Heraclea ? There is a man present of
the very highest authority, a most scrupulous and truthful
man, Lucius Lucullus, who will tell you not that he thinks
it, but that he knows it ; not that he has heard of it, but that
he saw it ; not even that lie was present when it was done,
but that he actually did it himself. Deputies from Heraclea
are present, men of the highest rank j they have come ex-
pressly on account of this tnaJ, with a commission from their
city, and to give evidetice on the part of their city ; and they
say that he was enrolled as a Heraclean. On this you ask for
the pubhb registers of the Heracleans, which we all know
were destroyed in the Italian war, when the register oflGice was
burnt. It is ridiculous to say nothing to the proofs which
we have, but to ask for proofs which it is impossible for us to
have j to disregard the recollection of men, and to appeal to
the memory of documents ; and when you have the c(mi-
scientious evidence of a most honourable man, the oath and
good faith of a most respectable municipality, to reject those
things which cannot by any possibility be tampered with,
and to demand documentary evidence, though you say at the
same moment that that is constantly played tricks with.
" But he had no residence at Home." What, not he who for
so many years before the freedom of the city was given to
him, had established the abode of all his property and fortunes
at Rome ? " But he did not return himself." Indeed he did,
and ^ that return which alone obtains with the college of
praetors the authority of a public document.
V. For as the returns of Appius were said to have been
kept carelessly, and as the trifling conduct of Gabinius, before
he was convicted, and his misfortune after his condemnation,
had taken away all credit from the public registers, Metellus,
the most scrupulous and moderate of all men, was so carefrQ,
that he came to Lucius Lentulus, the prsetor, and to the
judges, and said that he was greatly vexed at an erasure which
appeared in one n^me. In these documents, therefore, vou
wHl see no erasure afiTecting the name of Aulus Licinius. And
as this is the case, wh^.t reason have you for doubting about
his citizenship, especially as he was enrolled as a citizen of
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r^<
416 OICEBO'S OBATIOKB.
other cities also ? In truth, as men in Greece were in the
habit of giving rights of citizenship to many men of very
v^rdinary qualifications, and endowed with no talents at all, or
with very moderate ones, without any payment, it is likely, I
suppose, that the Rhegians, and Locriaos, and Neapolitans,
and Tarentines should have been unwilling to give to this
man, enjoying the highest possible reputation for genius, what
they were in the habit of giving even to theatrical artists. ,
What, when other men, who not only after the fi:'eedom of the .
city had been given, but even after the passing of the Papian ;
law, crept somehow or other into the registers of those muni- '
cipalities, shall he be rejected who does not avail himself of
those other lists in which he is enrolled, because he always
wished to be considered a Heraclean? You demand to see
our own censor's returns. I suppose no one knows that at
the time of the last census he was with that most illustrious
general, Lucius LucuUus, with the army ; that at the time c^
the preceding one he was with the same man when he was in
Asia as quaestor ; and that in the census before that, when
Julius and Crassus were censors, no regular account of the
people was taken. But, since the census does not confirm
the right of citizenship, but only indicates that he, who is
returned in the census, did at that time claim to be considered
as a citizen, I say that, at that time, when you say, in your
speech for the prosecution, that he did not even himself con-
sider that he had any claim to the privileges of a Roman
citizen, he more than once made a will according to our laws,
and he entered upon inheritances left him by Roman citizens;
and he was made honourable mention of by Lucius Lucullus,
both as praetor and as consul, in the archives kept in the
treasury.
VI. You must rely wholly on what arguments you can find.
For he will never be convicted either by his own opinion of
' * 3 case, or by that which is formed of it by his Mends.
You ask us, 0 Gratius, why we are so exceedingly attached
to this man. Because he supplies us with food whereby our
mind is refreshed after this noise in the forum, and with rest
for our ears after they have been wearied with bad language.
Do you think it possible that we could find a supply for ox!'^
daily speeches, when discussing such a variety of matters,
unless we were to cultivate our minds by the study of litera-
ture ; or that our minds could bear being kept so constantly
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FOB A. L. ABOHIA& 417
on the stretch if we did not relax them by that same study ?
But I confess that I am devoted to those studies ; let others
be ashamed of them if they have buried themselves in books
without being able to produce anything out of them for the
common advantage^ or anything which may bear the eyes of
men and the light. But why need I be ashamed^ who for
many years have lived in such a manner as never to allow my
own love of tranquillity to deny me to the necessity or ad-
vantage of another, or my fondness for pleasure to distract, or
even deep to delay my attention to such claims ? Who then
can reproach me, or who has any right to be angry with me,
if I allow myself as much time for the cultivation of these
studies as some take for the performance of their own busi-
ness, or for celebrating days of festival and games, or for other
pleasures, or even for the rest and refreshment of mind and
body, or as others devote to early banquets, to playing at
dice, or at ball ) And this ought to be permitted to met,
because by these studies my power of speaking and those
faculties are improved, which, as far as they do exist in me,
have never been denied to my friends when they have been in
peril And if that ability appears to any one to be but mode-
rate, at all events I know whence I derive those principles
which are of the greatest value. For if I had not persuaded^
myself from my youth upwards, both by the precepts of many
masters and by much reading, that there is nothing in life
greatly to be desired, except praise and honour, and that
while pursuing those things all tortures of the body, all
dangers of death and banishment are to be considered but of
small importance, I should never have exposed myself in de«
fence bf your safety, to such numerous and arduous contests,
and to these daily attacks of profligate men. But all books
are full of such precepts, and all the sayings of philosophers, ^
and all antiquity is full of precedents teaching the same lesson ;
but all these things would lie buried in darkness, if the light
of literature and learning were not applied to them. How
many images of the bravest men, carefully elaborated, have
both the Greek and Latin writers bequeathed to us, not merely
for us to look at and gaze upon, but also for our imitation 1
And I, always keeping them before my eyes, as examples for
my own public conduct, have endeavoured to model my mind
and views by continually thinking of those excellent men.
VII. Some one wiU ask, " Whati were those identical
VOL. U. BB
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418 OICEBO'S ORATIONa
great men, whose virtues have been recorded in books, ac-
oomplished in all that learning which you are extolling so
highly r* It is difficult to assert this of all of them; but
still I know what answer I can make to that question : I
admit that many men have existed of admirable disposition
and virtue, who, without learning, by the almost divine
instinct of their own mere nature, have been, of their own
accord, as it were, moderate and wise men. I even add Una,
that very often nature without learning has had more to do
with leading men to credit and to virtue, than learning when
not assisted by a good natmral disposition. And I also con-
tend, that when to an excellent and admirable natural dis-
-position there is added a certain system and training of edu-
cation, then from that combination arises an extraordinary
"^perfection of character; such as is seen in that god-like^ man,
whom our fathers saw in their time, Africanus; and in Cains
Lsolius and Lucius Furius, most virtuous and moderate men ;
and in that most excellent man, the most learned man of his
time, Marcus Cato the elder ; and all these men, if they
had been to derive no assistance from literature in the culti-
vation and practice of virtue, would never have applied them-
selves to the study of it Though, even if there were no such
great advantage to be reaped from it, and if it were only
pleasure that is sought from these studies, still I imagine
you would consider it a most reasonable and liberal employ-
ment of the mind: for other occupations are not suited to
every time, nor to every age or place ; but these studies are
the food of youth, the delight of old age ; the ornament of
prosperity, tiie refuge and comfort of adversity ; a delight at
home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by
night, and in travel, and in the country.
VIII. And if we ourselves were not able to arrive at these
advantages, nor even taste them with our senses, still we
ought to admire them, even when we saw them in others.
Who of us was of so ignorant and brutal a disposition as not
lately to be grieved at the death of Roscius ? who, though he
was an old man when he died, yet, on account of the excel-
lence and beauty of his art, appeared to be one who on eveiy
account ought not to have died. Therefore, had he by the
gestures of his body gained so much of our affections, and
shall we disregard the Incredible movements of the mind, and
thq rapid operations of genius ? How often have I seen thi^
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FOB A. L. AfiOHIAfl. 419
man Arcbias, 0 judges,— (for I will take adyantage of your
kindness, since you listen to me so attentiyely while speaking
in this unusual manner,) — ^how often have I seen him, when he
had not written a single word, repeat extempore a giW num-
ber of admirable verses on the yery eyents which were passing
at the moment 1 How often have 1 seen him go back, and
describe the same thing over again with an entire chai^ of
language and ideas i And what he wrote with care and with
much thought, that I have seen admired to such a degree, as
to equal the credit of even the writings of the ancients.
Should not I, then, love this man ? should I not admire him ?
should not I think it my duty to defend him in every possible
way ? And, indeed, we have constantly heard from men of
the greatest eminence and learning, that the study of other
sciences was made up of learning, and rules, and regular
method ; but that a poet was such by the unassisted work of
nature, and was moved by the vigour of his own mind, and
was-inspjred, as it were, by some divine wrath. Wherefore «
rightly does our own great Ennius call poets holy; because
they seem to be recommended to us by some especial gift, as
it were, and liberality of the gods. Let then, judges, this
name of poet, this name which no barbarians even have ever
disregard^ be holy in your eyes, men of cxdtivated minds as
you all are. Bocks and deserts reply to the poet's voice ; -
savage beasts are often moved and arrested by song ; and
shall we, who have been trained in the pursuit of the most
virtuousracts, refuse to be swayed by the voice of poets ? The
Colophonians say that Homer was their citizen ; the Chians
claim hiin as theirs; the Salaminians assert their right to him ;
but the men of Smyrna loudly assert him to be a citizen of
Smyrna, and they have even raised a temple to him in their
city. Many other places also fight with one another for the
honour of being his birth-place.
IX. They, then, claim a stranger, even after his death,
because he was a poet; shall we reject this man while he is
alive, a man who by his own incHnation and by our laws does
actually belong to us ? especially when Archias has employed
all his genius with the utmost zeal in celebrating the glory
and renown of the Roman people 1 For when a young man,
he touched on our wars against the Cimbri, and gained the
favour even oi Caius Marius himself, a man who was tolerably
proof against this sort of study. For there was no one so
be2
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420 OIOBBO'S OBATIONB.
diflinclined to the Muses as not willingly to endure that the
praise of his labours should be made immortal by means of
Terse. They say that the great Themistocles, tlie greatest
nmn that Athens produced, said, when some one asked him
what soimd or whose yoice he took the greatest delight in
hearing, " The voice of that by whom his own exploits were
best celebrated.** Therefore, the great Marius was also ex-
ceedingly attached to Lucius Plotius, because he thought
that the achieyement which he had performed could be cele-
brated by his genius. And the whole Mithridatic war, great
and difficult as it was, and carried on with so much diversity
of fortune by land and sea, has been related at length by him ;
and the books in which that is sung o( not only make illus-
trious Lucius Lucullus, that most gallant and celebrated man,
but they do honotu: also to the Roman people. For, while
Lucullus was general, the Roman people opened Pontus,
though it was defended both by the resources of the king and
by the character of the country itself. Under the same gene-
ral the army of the Roman people, with no very great num-
bers, routed the coimtless hosts of the Armenians. It is the
glory of the Roman people that, by the wisdom of that
same general, the city of the Cyzicehes, most friendly to
us, was delivered and preserved from all the attacks of^he
kind, and from the very jaws as it were of the whole war.
Ours is the glory which will be for ever celebrated, which
is derived from the deet of the enemy which was sunk
after its admirals had been slain, and from the marvellous
naval battle off Tenedos : those trophies belong to us, those
monuments are ours, those triumphs are ours. Therefore,
I say that the men by whose genius these exploits are cele-
brated, make illustrious at the same time the glory of the
Roman people. Our coimtryman, Ennius, was dear to the
elder Africanus ; and even on the tomb of the Scipios his
effigy is believed to be visible, carved in the marble. But un-
doubtedly it is not only the men who are themselves praised
who aye done honour to by those praises, but the name of the
Roman people also is adorned by them. Cato, the ancestor
of this Cato, is extolled to the skies. Great honour is paid to
the exploits of the Roman people. Lastly, all those great
men, the Maximi, the Marcelli, and the Fulvii, are done
honour to, not without all of us having also a share in the
panegyria
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FOB A. L. ABGHIAS. 421
X. Therefore our ancestors received the man who was the
cause of all this, a man of Budiae, into their city as a citizen ;
and shall we reject from our city a man of Heraclea, a man
sought by many cities, and made a citizen of ours by these
very laws ?
For if any one thinks that there is a smaller gain of glory
derived from Greek verses than from Latin ones, he is greatly
mistaken, because Greek poetry is read among all nations,
Latin is confined to its own natural limits, which are narrow
enough. Wherefore, if those achievements which we have
performed are limited only by the bounds of the whole world,
we ought to desire that, wherever our vigom* and our arms
have penetrated, our glory and our fame should likewise ex-
tend. Because, as this is always an ample reward for those
people whose achievements are the subject of writings, so
especially is it the greatest inducement to eucounter labours
and dangers to all men who fight for themselves for the sake
of glory. How many historians of his exploits is Alexander
the Great said to have had with him ; and he, when standing
on Cape Sigeum at the grave of Achilles, said, — ^** 0 happy
youth, to find Homer as the panegyrist of yom* glory !" And
he said the truth ; for, if the Iliad had not existed, the same
tomb which covered his body would have also buried his
renown. What, did not our own Magnus, whose valour has
been equal to his fortune, present Theophanes the Mitylensean,
a relator of his actions, with the freedom of the city in an
assembly of the soldiers ? And those brave men, our coimtry-
men, soldiers and country-bred men as they were, still being
moved by the sweetness of glory, as if they were to some
extent partakers of the same renown, showed their approbation
of that action with a great shout. Therefore, I suppose, if
Archias were not a Boman citizen according to the laws, he
could not have contrived to get presented with the freedom
of the city by some general ! Syfla, when he was giving it to
the Spaniards and Gauls, would, I suppose, have refused him
if he had asked for it ! a man whom we ourselves saw in the
public assembly, when a bad poet of the common people had
put a book in his hand, because he had made an epigram on
him with every other verse too long, immediately ordered
some of the things which he was selling at the moment to
be given him as a reward, on condition of not writing any-
thing mpre about him for the future. Would not he who
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422 cicbro'b obationb.
thought the industry of a bad poet still worthy of some
reward, have sought out the genius, and excellence, and copi-
ousness in writing of this man ] What more need I say ?
Could he not have obtained the freedom of the city from
Quintus Metellus Pius, his own most intimate Mend, who
gave it to many men, either by his own request, or by the
intervention of the Luculli ? especially when Metellus was so
anxious to have his own deeds celebrated in writing, that he
gave his ^attention willingly to poets bom even at Cordova,
whose poetry had a very heavy and foreign flavour.
XI. For this should not b^ concealed, which cannot possibly
be kept in the dark, but it might be avowed openly : we are
all influenced by a desire of praise, and the best men are the
most especially attracted by glory. Those very philosophers
even in the books which they write about despising glory, put
their own names on the title-page. In the very act of record-
ing their contempt for renown and notoriety, they desire to
have their own names known and talked of. Decimus Brutus,
that most excellent citizen and consummate general, adorned
the approaches to his temples and monuments with the verses
of Attius. And lately that great man Fulvius, who fought
with the iEtolians, having Ennius for his companion, did not
hesitate to devote the spoils of Mars to the Muses. Where-
fore, in a city in which generals, almost in arms, have paid
respect to the name of poets and to the temples of the Museei,
these judges in the garb of peace ought not to act in a manner
inconsistent with t£e honour of the Muses and the safety
of poets.
And that you may 'do that the more willingly, I will now
reveal my own feehngs to you, 0 .judges, and I will make a
confession to you of my own love of glory, — ^too eager perhaps,
but still honourable. For this man has in his verses touched
upon and begun the celebration of the deeds which we in our
consulship did in imion with you, for the safety of this city
and empire, and in defence of the life of the citizens and of
the whole republic. And when I had heard his commence-
ment, because it appeared to me to be a great subject and at
the same time an agreeable one, I encouraged him to complete
his work. For virtue seeks no other reward for its labours
and its dangers beyond that of praise and renown ; and if
that be denied to it, what reason is there, 0 judges, why in so
small and brief a course of life as is allotted to us, we should
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FCm A. L. AB0HIA8. 423
impose sucli labours on ourselves ? Certainly, if the mind
had no anticipations of posterity, and if it were to confine all*
its thoughts within the same limits as those by which the
space of our lives is bounded, it would neither break itself
witjh such severe labours, nor would it be tormented with
such cares and sleepless anxiety, nor would it so often have to
fight for its very life. At present there is a certain virtue in
every good man, which night and day stirs up the mind with
the stimulus of glory, and reminds it that all mention of our
name will not cease at the same time with our lives, but that
our &me will endure to all posterity.
XII. Do we all who are occupied in the affidrs of the state,
and who are surrounded by such perils and dangers in life,
appear to be so narrow-minded, as, though to the last moment
of our lives we have never passed one tranquil or easy moment,
to think that everything will perish at the sapae time as
ourselves? Ought we not, when many most illustrious
men have with great care collected and left behind them
statues and images, representations not of their minds but of
their bodies, much more to desire to leave behind us a copy
of our counsels and of our virtues, wrought and elaborated
by the greatest genius ? I thought, at the very moment of
performing them, that I was scattering and disseminating all
the deeds which I was performing, aU over the world for the
eternal recollection of nations. And whether that delight is
to be denied to my soul after death, or whether, aa the wisest
men have thought, it will afifect some portion of my spirit, at
all events, I am at present delighted with some such idea and
hope.
Preserve then, 0 judges, a man of such virtue as that of
Archias, which you see testified to you not only by the worth
of his Mends, but by the length of time during which they
have been such to him ; and of such genius as you ought to
think is h\B, when you see that it has been sought by most
illustrious men. And his cause is one which is approved of
by the benevolence of the law, by the authority of his muni-
cipality, by the testimony of Lucullus, and by the docu-
mentary evidence of MeteUus. And as this is the case, we do
entreat you, 0 judges, if there may be any weight attached, I
will not say to human, but even to divine recommendation in
such important matters, to receive under your protection that
man who has at all times done honour to your generals and to
the exploits of the Roman people, — ^who even in these recent
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424 OICEBO'S ORATIOira.
perils of our own, and in your domestic dangers, promises to
give an eternal testimony of pr&ise in our favour, and who
forms one of that hand of poets who have at all times and in
all nations heen considered and called holy, so that he may
seem relieved by your humanity, rather than overwhelmed by
your severity.
The things which, according fo my custom, I have* said
briefly and simply, 0 judges, I trust have been approved by
all of you. Those things which I have spoken, without re-
garding the habits of the forum or judicial usage, both con-
cerning the genius of the man and my own zeal in his behalf
I trust have been received by you in good part. That they
have been so by him who presides at this trial, I am quite
certain.
THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF LTJCIUS
FLACCUS.
THB ARGUHEHT.
Lucius YaleriuBFlacciig had been praetor in Cicero's consulship, and bad
received the thanks of the senate for his zeal and vigour in the arrest
of Catiline's accomplices ; but he was now accused by Publius
Lselius of rapine and oppression in the province of Asia, which had
fallen to his lot after his prsetorship. Part of the charge was on the
ground that he had prohibited the Jews from carrying out of his
province the gold which they used to collect annually throughout the
empire for the temple at Jerusalem, and that he had seized it all, and
remitted it to Bome. Hortensius was joined with Cicero in the
defence ; as is mentioned by Cicero in the last epistle of the second
book of the Letters to Atticus; where he says, "WiUi how much
copiousness, with how much nobleness, with how much elegance, did
your friend Hortensius^ extol me to the skies, both when he was
speaking of the prsetorship of Flaccus, and of the times of the Alio-
broges."
We may observe, since there has been some dispute as to the order in
which this oration should be printed, that it cannot have been spoken
before the year 695, a. u. a, in the consulship of Caius Julius Caesar
and Marcus Calpumius Bibulus, for Cicero's consulship took place
▲.u. 0. 691, and after that Flaccus was occupied as propraetor for three
years in Asia, and it could not have been before the expiration of
his praetorship, and his return from it, that this prosecution was
instituted. Flaccus was acquitted.
This oration is imperfect and mutilated in some places.
I. When in the greatest perils of this city and empire, in the
most important and terrible disasters of the republic, I was
repelling slaughter from you, your wives, and your children,
* But some editions here read HorkUut,
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VOB L. FLAC0U8. 4tj£5
devastation from your temples, your altars, from the city,
and from Italy, with Lucius Flaccus, the companion and
assistant of my counsels and my dangers, I used to hope,
O judges, that I should some time or o^er be an assistant of
Lucius Flaccus towards obtaining honour, rather than an
advocate to defend him from calamity. For v^at reward of
dignity could there be which the Boman people would deny
to him, when it had always given them to his ancestors ; when
Lucius Flaccus had imitated the ancient glory of the Valerian
family in delivering his country, nearly five hundred years
after the existence of the republic ?
But, if by chance there had existed at any time any
detractor from this service, any enemy of this virtue, any
envier of this renown, still I thought that Lucius Flaccus
would have to encounter the judgment of an ignorant mob,
(with no real danger, indeed,) rather than that of most wise
and carefully chosen men. I never, indeed, imagined that
any one would bring danger upon, or devise plots against, his
fortunes, by means of those very men, by whose influence,
and under whose protection, the safety, not only of all the
citizens, but even of all nations, was at that time defended
and preserved. And if it was fated ever to happen that any
one should devise mischief to Lucius Flaccus, still I never
thought, 0 judges, that Decimus Leelius, the son of a most
virtuous man, himself a man of the &irest expectations and
of the highest dignity, would adopt an accusation which is
more suitable to the hatred and madness of wicked citizens
than to his virtue and to the training of his early years.
Indeed, as I had often seen well-founded enmities with citi-
zens who had deserved well of their country, laid aside by
the most illustrious men, I did not think that any friend of
the republic, after the affection of Lucius Flaccus had been
thoroughly tried, would take up a fresh quarrel against him
without having received any injury.
But since, 0 judges, many things have deceived us, both
in our own affairs and in those of the republic, those things
which must be borne, we bear. This only we ask of you, —
that you will consider that the whole strength of the re-
public,—the whole constitution of the state, — all the memory
of past, and the safety of present, and the hope of future
time, hangs and depends upon your power, upon your votes,
upon this single trial If ever the repubhc has had need to
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425 dCKBO's ORATIONB.
implore the wisdom, the gravitj, the pndence and tlie fore-
sight of her judges, she implores it now,— she implores it,
I say, at this present time.
II. Tou are not now about to decide on the constitntion of
Lydiahs, or Mysians, or Phrygians, who, under the influence
of some comprtilsion or excitement, ha^e come before you ;
but on your own republic, — on the constitution of your own
state, — on the common safety,— on the hope of all good
men, if there is any such still remaining to support the
minds and thoughts of braye citizens. Every other refuge
of good men, — every other protecti<»i of innocent men, —
every bulwark of the republic, wisdom, assistance, and laws,
has &iled. For whom else can I appeal to? whom can I
cite t whom can I entreat 1 The senate ) Nay ; the senate
itself implores assistance from you, and feels that the con-
firmation of its authority^ is submitted to your decision. The
Ron^ui knights 1 Tou yourselves, the fifty chief men of that
body, will declare how fiif your sentiments are in unison with
those of the rest Shall I appeal to the Roman people?
That body has delivered over to you all its power over us in
our case. Wherefore, unless we can maintain in this place,
and before you, and by your means, 0 judges, I will not say
our authority, for that is lost, but our eofety, which hangs on
a slender hope, and that hope our last, we have no place of
refuge beyond to which we can betake ourselves. Unless
perchance, 0 judges, you fidl to see, as yet, what is the real
object of this proceeding, what is really at stake, and what
is the cause, the foimdations of which are being now laid.
The man has been condemned who slew Catiline when he
was bearing his hostile standards against his country. What
reason is there why he who drove Catiline from the city
shoxdd be exempt from fear) That man is demanded for
punishment who discovered the proofit of the common
destruction of all which was then Iteing planned. Why
^ould he feel safe who took care to produce and divulge
those proofs ? The partners of his counsels, his ministers
and comrades are harassed. What are the leaders, and chiefs,
and principal men of his party to expect ? And I wish that
my enemies, and those of all good men, would rather attack
me ; we should then see whether at that time all good men
were my guides or my companions in preserving the common
safety of *♦*♦♦*
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FOB L. FLACCUS. 427
(He preferred saying they were strangled.
What did my friend CsBtra wish i
And what did Decianus ?
I wish it really was mine. The senate to a great extent * *
0 ye immortal gods ! that Lentulus)* * * . ♦
[What* was tie use of bringing forward foreign evidence,]
when his domestic life and his natural disposition was noto-
rious ? Therefore, I will not, 0 Decimus Lselius, allow you
to assume this law and this condition as applicable to yourself
and to the rest for, the future, and to tis at present; [so as to
lay down a rule that we are to accommodate our defences to
the will of the prosecutors, and not come to those assertions
to which our cause of itself leads us.1
When you have branded his youth, when you have stigma-
tized the rest of .his life with stains of infamy, when you have
brought forward the ruin of his private affidrs, and his dis-
grace in the city, and his vices and crimes in Spain, and Gaid,
and Cilida^ and Crete, in which provinces he lived in no great
obscurity, then we shall hear what the people of Tmolus and
the Lorymeni think of Lucius Flaccus. But the man whom
so maiiy and such influential provinces wish to be saved, —
whom many citizens from all parts of Italy defend^ being
bound to him by intimate connexion and old friendship, —
whom this the common country of us all holds fast in her
embrace, on account of her fr^sh recollection of his great
services, — ^him, even if all Asia demands him for punishment,
1 will defend, — his enemies 1 will resist. What if it is not
all Asia that demands him, nor the best part of it, nor even
any part without bribery, nor of its own accord, nor rightly,
nor in & manner according to custom, nor with truth, nor
with any conscientious regard to justice or honesty] If
it only demands him because it has been persuaded, and
tampered with, and excited, and compelled to do so, — if it
has backed this prosecution with its name impiously, and
rashly, and covetously, and with great inconsistency, speaking
only by the mouth of the most needy witnesses, and if the
province itself has no grounds to complain with truth of any
injuries done by him ; still, 0 judges, wiU these statements,
^ The passages between parentheses ( ) are from a Vatican MS. first
inserted in the text by Nobbe.
* The passages between brackets [ ] are additions of Beier from a
Milan MS. inserted in the same way by Orellias.
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428 OIOBRO'S ORATIONS.
heard with reference to a very brief epoch, diminish the credit
due to actions which we really know, extending over a long
period of time ?
I, therefore, as his defender, will preserve this order which
his enemy avoids ; and I will piirsue and follow np the prose-
cutor, and of my own accord I will demand the accusation
from our adversary. What is it, 0 Laelius 1 Have you at
any time been able to stigmatize the youth of Lucius Flac-
cus, who has passed his time, not in the shade, nor in the
common pursuits and training of those of his age ? In truth,
even as a boy he went with his father, the consul, to the
wars,; and yet, even as to this very fact you accused him of
something because [something appeared able to be said so as
to excite suspicion.]
III. With what charges, then, 0 Lselius, do you attack my
client, being such a man as he is ? He was in Cilicia a mili-
tary tribime when Publius Servilius was the general ; not a
word is said about that. He was quaestor to Marcus Piso in
Spain ; not a word has been uttered about his qusestorship.
He was present at the greater part of the Cretan war, and
went through all its hardships in the company of that
consummate general. The accusation is dumb with regard
to this period. His discharge of his duties as judge during
his praetorship, — a business of great intricacy, and affording
numberless causes for suspicion and enmities, is not touched.
Nay more, though it fell in a most critical and perilous time
of the republic, it is praised even by his enemies. " Oh, but
damaging evidence has been given against him." Before I
say by whom it was given, by what hopes, by what violence,
by what means the witnesses were urged on, and what insig-
nificant, needy, treacherous, audacious men they were, I will
speak of their whole class, and of the condition in which
all of us are placed. In the name of the immortal gods,
0 judges, will you ask of unknown witnesses in what way the
man decided trials in Asia, who the year before had sat as
judge at Rome ? And will you yourselves form no conjec-
tures on the subject? In a jurisdiction so various, many
decrees were issued, — ^many desires of influential men were
set at nought ; and yet, what words, (I will not say of sus-
picion, for that is often false, but) of anger or indignation
were ever once uttered against him ? And is that man to be
put on his trial for covetousness, who, when employed on a
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FOR L. FLACOUS. 429
business affording numerous opportunities for such conduct,
shunned all base gain, — -who, in a city much given to evil
speaking, and in an oflfice surrounded with suspicion, avoided,
not only all accusation, but even a single hard name ? I pass
over points which I ought not to pass over, that in his private
affairs no covetous action, no eagerness about money matters,
no sordid conduct in the management of his estate can be
alleged against him. By what witnesses, then, can I refute
these men except by you 1 Shall that villager from near
Tmolus, — ^a man not only a stranger to us, but .not even
known among his own neighbours, — ^teach you what sort of a
man Lucius Flaccus is 1 whom you yourselves have known
to be most modest as a youth ; whom our most extensive
provinces have found to be a most conscientious man, and
whom our armies know by experience to be a thoroughly
brave soldier and vigilant general, and as a lieutenant and
quaestor most moderate ; whom you yourselves, being wit-
nesses on the spot of his conduct, have judged to be a
thoroughly wise and consistent senator, a most upright
praetor, and a citizen wholly devoted to the republic.
IV. Will you, then, listen to others as witnesses on those
points, respecting which you yourselves ought rather to bear
witness to others 1 And what witnesses are they ? In the first
place, I will say that they are Greeks, (that is the cas^ of
them all.) Not that I, for my own part, would be more in-
clined than others to refuse credit to that nation ; for if ever
there was any one of our countrymen not averse to that race
of men, and proving himself so by zeal and good-wiU, I think
that I am that man, and that I was so even more when I had
more leisure ; but there are in that body many virtuous,
many learned, many modest men, and they have not been
. brought hither to this trial There are also many impudent,
iUiterate, worthless persorus, and those I see here, impelled by
various motives. But I say this of the whole race of Greeks ;
I allow them learning, I allow them a knowledge of many
arts ; I do not deny tibem wit in conversation, acuteness of
talents, and fluency in speaking ; even if they claim praise for
other sorts of ability, I will not make any objection ; but
a scrupulous regard to truth in giving their evidence is not a
virtue that that nation has ever cultivated ; they are utterly
ignorant what is the meaning of that quality, they know
nothing of its authority or of its weight. Where does that
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430 OI0BBO*B ORATIOKB.
expression, " Give evidence for me, and I will give evidence
for you," come from ? is it supposed to be a phrase of the
Gauls, or of the Spaniards ? It belongs wholly to the Greeks ;
80 that even those who do not understand Greek know what
form of expression is used by the Greeks for this. Therefore,
when they give their evidence, remark with what a counte-
nance, with what confidence they give it ; and then you will
become aware how scrupulous they are as to what evidence
they give. They never reply precisely to a question. They
always answer an accuser more than he asks them. They
never feel any anxiety to make what they say seem probable
to any one ; but are solicitous only how to get out what they
have got to say. Marcus Lurco gave evidence against Flaccus,
being angry (as he said himself) because his freedman had been
condemned by a decision of his involving in&my. He said
nothing which could injure him, though he was eager to do so ;
for his conscientious regard to his oath prevented lum. And yet
with what modesty, with what trembling and paleness did he
say what he did ! How ready to give evidence was Publius Sep-
timius ; how angry was he about some former trial, and about
his steward : yet he hesitated ; yet his scrupulousness was at
times at variance with his anger. Marcus CsbUus was an
enemy to Flaccus, because, as Flaccus had thought it wrong
forgone publican to decide on the case of another publican,
though the case was ever so evident, he had been removed
from the list of judges. And yet he restrained himseli^ and
brought nothing into the court which could injure Flaccus
except his own inclination to do so.
Y. If these men had been Greeks, and if oiur habits and
princ^les had not had more influence than indignation and
hostility, they all would have said that they had been plun-
dered, and harassed, and stripped of their fortunes. When a
Greek witness comes forward with a desire to injure a man, he
does not think of the words of his oath, but of what he can
say to injure him. He thinks it a most shameM thing to be
defeated, to be detected, to allow his enemy's innocence to be
proved. That is the contest for which he prepares himself ; he
cares for nothing l»eyond. Therefore, it is not the best men,
nor the wisest, but the most impudent and talkative men who
«!« selected as witnesses. But you, even in private trials about
the most tiifling matters, carefully weigh the character of a
witness ; eren if you know the person of the man, and his name
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*0R L. PLA0CU8. 431
and his tribe, still you think it right to inquire into his habits.
And when a man of our citizens gives his evidence, how care-
fully does he restrain himself; how scrupulously does he
regulate all his expressions; how fearful is he, and anxious not
to say anything covetously, or angrily, — ^not to say one word
more or less than is necessary I Do you think that those
Greeks are so too ? men to whom an oath is a joke, evidence
a plaything, your opinion of them a shadow ; men who place
all their credit, and profit, and reputation, and triumph in
telling the most impudent lies. But I will not spin out what
I have got to say. Indeed, my speech would be interminable
if I were to take it into my head to imfold the faithlessness of
the whole nation in giving evidence. But I will come nearer
home ; I will speak of these witnesses whom you have brought
forward.
We have got a liiost zealous prosecutor, 0 judges, and an
enemy in every respect violent and furious against us. I
trust that he may be of great use to his friends and to the
republic ; but, at all events, he has undertaken this case and this
prosecution, as if he were impelled by some most extraordinary
eagerness. "What a company attended him while pursuing his
investigations ! Company, do I sa^ ? rather, what an army !
what profusion I what expense ! what prodigality was there !
And though these statements are of service to my case, still I
do not make them without apprehension lest Lselius should
think that I am seeking by my oration to make him talked
about, or to excite odium against him, in a business which he
has undertaken for the sole object of acquiring credit.
VI. Therefore, I will pass over all this part of the subject
I' will only b^ of you, O judges, if you have heard anything
yourselves by common report and in ordinary conversation,
about force, and violence, and arms, and troops, to recollect it,
and to remember, because of the impopularity of such conduci^
that by this recent law, a certain number of companions has
been fixed as the greatest number that ought to attend a man
while prosecuting such an inquiry. However, to say nothing
of violence, what conduct is this 1 which, since it was adopted
according to the privileges and customs of prosecutors, we can-
not impeach, but still we are compelled to complain of it ; I
mean, first of all, the making a statement which has been
bruited abroad over all Asia, (different people having had
regular districts assigned to them, in which they were to
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432 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
spread the report,) that Cnseus Pompeius, because he is a moflt
zealous enemy to Lucius Flaccus, had begged of Decimus
Lselius, his fiather's and his own most intimate friend, to pro-
secute him on this charge, and thdt he placed at his di^KMsal for
the furtherance of this business, all his own authority, and in-
fluence, and resources, and riches. And this appeal^ all the
more probable to the Greeks, because a little before they had
seen Lselius in the same province with Flaccus, and on terms
of great intimacy with him. And as the authority of Pompeius
is great with every one, as indeed it ought to be, so especially
is it predominant in that province which he has lately de-
livered from the war which pirates and kings were waging
against it. He did this besides : those who did not wish to leave
their homes he terrified with a summons to give their evi-
dence ; those who could not remain at home he provided with
a large and liberal sum for travelling expenses. And thus
this young man, full of ability, worked on the wealthy by
fear, on the poor by bribes, on the stupid by leading them into
mistakes; and by these means he extorted those beautiful
decrees which have been read to you,— decrees which were not
passed by any formal vote or regular authority, nor under the
sanction of an oath, but carried by holding up the hand, and
by the loud shouts of an excited multitude.
VIT. 0 for the admirable customs and principles which we
received from our ancestors, if we coidd but keep them ! but
somehow or other they have slipped through our fingers. For
our ancestors, those wise and upright men, would not permit
the public assembly to have any authority to make laws ;
they chose that whatever the common people decided, or
whatever the burgesses wished to enact, should be ordered or
forbidden, after the assembly was adjourned, and after all the
parts lAd been properly arranged, by the different rank%
classes, and ages, distributed in ^ their tribes and centuries,
after having hstened to the advocates of the proposal on which
the vote was to be taken, and after the propel itself had been
for many days before the people, and had had its merits
inquired into. But all the repubhcs of the Greeks are governed
by the rashness of the assembly while sitting. Therefore, to
say no more of this Greece, which has long since been over-
thrown and crushed through the folly of its own counsels ;
that ancient country, which once flourished with riches, and
power, and glory, fell owing to that one evil, the immoderate
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FOB L. FLACCUS. 433
liberty and licentiousness of the popular assemblies. When
inexperienced men, ignorant and uninstructed in any descrip-
tion of business whateyer, took their seats in' the theatre, then
they undertook inexpedient wars ; then they appointed sedi-
tious men to the government of the republic; then they
banished from the city the citizens who had deserved best of
the state. But if these things were constantly taking place
at Athens, when that was the first city, not only in Greece, but
in almost all the world, what moderation do you suppose
there was in the assemblies in Phrygia and Mysia? It is
usually men of those nations who throw our own assemblies
into confusion ; what do you suppose is the case when they
are by themselves 1 Athenagoras, that celebrated man of
Cyme, was beaten with rods, because, at a time of feunine,
he haxi ventured to export com. An assembly was summoned
at the request of Lselius. Athenagoras came forward, and
being a Greek among Greeks, he said a good deal, not about
his faidt, but in the way of complaining of his pimishment.
They voted by holding up their hands. A decree was passed.
Is this evidence ? The men of Pergamus, having been lately
feasted, having been a little while before glutted with every
sort of present, — I mean, all the cobblers and girdle-makers in
Pergamus, — cried out whatever Mithridates (who governed
that midtitude, not by his authority, but by fiittening them
up) chose. Is this the testimony of that city ] I brought wit-
nesses from Sicily in pursuance of the pubHc resolution of the
island. But the evidence that I brought was the evidence not
of an excited assembly, but of a senate on its oath. So that
I am not now arguing against the reception of evidence ; but
you are to decide whether these statements are to be con-
sidered evidence.
VIII. A virtuous yoimg man, bom in an honourable rank,
and eloquent, comes with a most numerous and splendidly
appointed train into a town of the Greeks. He demands an
assembly. He frightens wealthy men and men of authority
from opposing him by summoning them to give evidence; he
tempts the needy and worthless by the hope of being em-
ployed on the commission, and by a pubfic grant for the
expenses of their journey, and also by his own private libe-
rality. What trouble is it to excite artisans, and shopkeepers,
and all such dregs of a city, against any man, and especially
against one who has lately had the supreme authority there,
VOL. n. p F
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4iH OIOKBO'S OBATION&
and oould not poBsiblij be very popular, on acoount of the
odium attached to the very name of supreme power ? And
is it strange that those men who abominate the sight of our
fiu^es, who detest our name, who hate our tax on pastures, and
our tenths, and our harbour dues, more than death itself
should gladly seize on every opportunity of injuring us ihat
presents itself) Bemember, therefore, that when you hear
decrees you are not hearing evidence ; that you are listening
to the rashness of the common people; that you are listening
to the assertions of all the most worthless men ; that you are
listening to the murmiuis of the ignorant, to the voice of an
inflamed assembly of a most worthless nation. Therefore
examine closely into the nature and motive of all their accu-
sations, and you will find no reason for them except the hopes
by which they have been led on, or the terrors and threats by
whidi they have been driven *****
IX. The cities have nothing in the treasury, nothing in
their revenues. There are two ways of raising money, — by
tribute, or by loan. No lists of creditors are brought for-
ward j no exaction of tribute is accoimted for. But I pray
you to remark how cheerfully they are in the habit of pro-
ducing false accoimts, and of entering in their accounts what-
ever suits them, forming your opinions by the letters of
CnsBUs Pompeius to Hypsaeus, and of Hypsseus to Pompeius.
[The liters of Fompeius and ofHypscem are read?\
Do not we appear to prove to you clearly enough, by the
authority of these men, the profligate habits and impudent
licentiousness of the Greeks ? Unless, perchance, we suppose
that those men who deceived Cnaeus Pompeius;, and that, too,
when he was on the spot, and when there was no one tempt-
ing them to do so, were likely now to be either timid or
scrupulous, when Lselius urged them to bear witness against
Lucius Flaccus in his absence. But, even suppose those
documents were not tampered with in their own city, still
what authority or what credit can they now have here I The
law orders them to be brought to the praetor within three
days, and to be sealed up witi^ the seals of the judges ; they
are scarcely brought within thirty days. In order that the
writings may not be easily tampered with, therefore the law
orders that after they have been sealed up they shall be kept
in a public office; but these are sealed up after they have
been tampered with. What difference, then, does it make,
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rOB L. FLAOCUS. 43d
whether they are brought to the judges so long alter tne
proper time, or whether they are not brought at all )
X. What shall we say if the zeal of ^e witnesses is in
partnership, as it were, with the prosecutor ? shall they still
be considered witnesses) What^ then, is become of that
expectation which ought to have a place in courts of justice )
For formerly, when a prosecutor had said anything with
bitterness and yehemence, and when the counsel for the de-
fence had made a supplicatory and submissiye reply, the third
step expected was the appearance of the witnesses, -^o either
spoke without any partisanship at all, or else they in some
degree concealed their desires. But what is the case here )
They are sitting with the prosecutor; they rise up firom the
prosecutor's bench ; they use no concealment ; they feel no
apprehension. Do I complain of where they sit ) They come
with him from his house ; if they trip at one word, they will
have no place to return to. Can any one be a witness, when
the prosecutor can examine him without any anxie^, and
have not the slightest fear of his giving him any answer which
he is unwilling to hear ? Where, then, is the oratoiHcal skill,
which formerly used to be looked for either in the prosecutor
or in the counsel for the defence f " He examined the witness
cleverly; he came up to him cunningly; he scolded him ; he
led him where he pleased ; he convicted him and made him
dumb." Why need you ask a man questions, Lselius, who,
even before you have pronounced the words " I ask you," will
pour out more assertions than you enjoined him before you
left home 9 And why should I, the counsel for the defence,
ask him questions, since the course to be taken with respect
to witnesses is either to invalidate their testimony or to im-
peach their characters 1 But by what discussion can I refute
the evidence of men who say " We gave," and no more ] Am
I then to make a speech against the man, when my speech can
find no room for argument ? What can I say against an utter
stranger? I must then be content with complaining and
lamenting, as I have been some time doing, the general ini-
quity of the whole prosecution, and, in the first place, the
whole class of witnesses; for that nation is the witness which
is the least scrupulous of all in giving evidence. I come
nearer, — I say that that is not evidence which you yourself
call decrees; but that it is only the grumbling of needy
men^ and a sort of random movement of a miserable Greek
ff2
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436 <noEBo's orations.
assembly. I will come in still further, — ^he who has done it
is not present ; he who is said to have paid the money is not
brought hither ; no private letters are produced ; the public
documents have been retained in the power of the prosecutors.
The main point of my ailment concerns the witnesses. These
men are living with our enemies, they come into court with
our adversaries, they are dwelling in the same house with our
prosecutors. Do you think that this is an examination and
an inquiry into the truth, or an endeavour to fix a stain, and
bring ruin upon innocence? for there are many things of such
a sort, 0 judges, that even if they deserve to be n^lected, as
far as the individual whom they more immediately affect is
concerned, are still to be dreaded, because of the state of
fistcts of which they betoken the existence, and because of the
precedents which they afford.
XI. K I were defending a man of the lowest rank, of no
splendour of reputation, and recommended by no innocence
of character, still, relying on the rights of common humanity
and mercy, I should beg from citizens, on behalf of another
citizen, that you would not give up your fellow-citizen and
your suppliant to witnesses who are strangers to you ; who
are urged on to give their evidence ; who are the companions,
and messmates, and comrades of the prosecutor; to men who
from their fickleness are Greeks, but who, as fiEu: as cruelty goes,
are barbarians : I should entreat you not to leave posterity
so dangerous a precedent for their imitation. But when the
interests of Lucius Flaccus are at stake, a man of whom I
may say that the first man who was made consul of his
&mily * was the first man that was ever consul in this city;
a man by whose valour the kings were banished, and liberty
was established in this republic ; a family which has endured
to this time with a continued series of honomrs and commands,
and of glorious achievements; and when Lucius Flaccus
has not only not degenerated from this everlasting and well-
' attested virtue of his ancestors, but as preetor has especially
devoted himself to the glory of asserting the liberty of h&
country, seeing that that was the especid glory and charac-
teristic of his fiunily, — can I fear lest any mischievous prece-
dent be established in the case of this defendant, when, even
* This is not quite true, for Cicero is referring to Publius Valerius,
sumamed Publicola, and he was not the first consul ; but was elected as
a sobftitate for OoUatimia, who, with hmiuB, was the first consoL
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FOR L. FLAOOUS. 437
if he had committed any slight fitult, all good men would
think that they ought rather to connive at it 1 That, how-
ever, I not only do not request, but I beg and entreat you,
O judges, to scrutinise the whole case most vigilantly, with
all your eyes, as they say. None of the charges will be found
borne witness to with conscientiousness, or founded in truth,
or extorted by indignation; but, on Ihe contrary, you will
Bee that it is all redolent of lust, passion, party spirit, bribery,
and perjury.
XII. Now that the universal cupidity of those men is
ascertained, I will proceed to the separate complaints and
charges of the Greeks. They complain that money was levied
from the cities under the name of money for a fleet. And
we admit, 0 judges, that that was done. But if this be a
crime, the guilt must consist either in the fact that it was not
lawful so to levy money ; or in the feet that the ships were
not wanted; or in the third alternative, that no fleet put to
sea while he was prsetor. That you may see that this levy
was lawful, listen, I pray you, to what the senate decreed,
when I was consul, in which it did not depart at all from the
former decrees of many years running.
[The resoltUion of the senate is read,"]
The next thing is for us to inquire whether there was need
of the fleet, or not. Is it then the Greeks or any foreign
nations who are to be judges of this, or your praetors, your
generals, your commanders-in-chief ? I indeed think that, in
a district and province of that sort, which is surroimded by
the sea, dotted all over with harbours, and girt with islands, a
fleet is requisite not only for the sake of protection, but as an
ornament of the empire. For there were these principles and
there was this greatness of mind in our ancestors, that, while
in their private aflairs, and as to their own personal expenses,
they lived contented with a little, and without the smallest
approach to luxury; where the empire and the dignity of the
state was concerned, they brought everything up to a high
pitch of splendour and magnificence. For in a man's private
affait^ he desires the credit of moderation, but in public aflairs
dignity is the obje«t aimed at. But even if he had a fleet for
the sake of protection, who will be so unjust as to blame it ?
— " There were no pirates." What? who could certify before-
hand that there would be none? " You are taking away,"
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43fi OIOEROS ORATION&
said he, " firom the glory of Pompeius." Say, rather, that
you yourself are increasing his difficulties. For he destroyed
the fleets of the pirates, tbeir cities, and harbours, and places
of refuge. By his surpassing valour and incredible rapidity
of motion he established a maritime peace ; but this he neither
undertook nor ought to have xmdertaken, — ^namely, to submit
to appear worthy of prosecution if a single pirate's boat was
anywhere seen. Therefore he himself in Asia, when he had
terminated every war, both by land and sea, nevertheless
levied a fleet on those self-same cities. And if he then
thought that step was necessary, when everything might have
been safe and tranquil through fear of his name, while he was
still in those countries, what do you think that Flaccus
ought to have decided on and to have done after he had
departed ?
XIII. What? did not we decree, by the advice of Pompeius
himself, in the consulship of Silanus and Murena, that a fleet
should put to sea to sail round Italy 1 Did not we, at the
very same time that Lucius Flaccus was levying sailors in
Asia, exact four millions three hundred thousand sesterces for
fleets to defend the Mediterranean and Adriatic ? What did
we do the year after 1 was not money exacted for the use of
the fleet when Marcus Curius and Publius Sextilius were
quflBstors 1 What ? were there not all this time cavalry on
ttie sea-coast 1 for that is the surpassing glory of Pompeius,
— first of all, that those pirates who, when the conduct of the
maritime war was first entrusted to him, wandered about
straggling over the whole sea, were soon reduced under our
power ; in the next place, that Syria is ours, that Cilicia is
occupied by us, that Cyprus, through the instrumentality of
king Ptolemseus is reduced to a state in which it can venture
to do nothing ; moreover, that Crete, owing to the valour of
Metellus, is ours; that the pirates have now no ports firom
which they can set out, none to which they can return; that
aU the bays, and promontories, and shores, and islands, and
maritime citiesf, are now contained within the barriers of our
empire.
But ij^ when Flaccus was praetor, there had been not one
pirate at sea, still his diligence would not have deserved to be
blamed. For I should think that the reason of there being no
pirates at sea was, because he had a fleet. What will you say if
I prove by the evidence of Lucius Oppiua^ of Lucius Agnus,
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FOR L. FLAOOUS. 439
of Caius Cestius, Boman knights, and also of this most illxistri-
ous man here present, Cnsens Domitius, who was an ambas-
sador in Asia at the time, that at that very time in which
you yourself affirm that there was no need of a fleet, numbers
of men were taken prisoners by the pirates ? Still will the
wisdom of Flaccus, as shown in raising crews for the fleet, be
found fiiult with 1 What if a man of high rank, a citizen of
Adramyttium, was even ^lain by the pirates, — a man whose
name is known to nearly all of us, Atyanas the boxer, a victor
at Olympia 1 and this victory is considered among the Greeks
(since we are speaking of their wisdom) a greater and more
glorious thing than to have had a triumph is reckoned at
Boma " But you took no prisoners." How many most
illustrious men have had the command of the sea-coast, who,
though they had taken no pirate prisoner, still made the sea
safe f For taking prisoners depends on chance, on place, on
accident, on opportunity. And the caution which shows
itself in defence has an easy task ; being aided not only by
lurking places in concealed spots, but by the sudden Mi or
change of winds and weather.
XIV. The last thing that we have to inquire into is,
whether that fleet really sailed ^ith oars and sails, or only on
paper, and as fiir as the expense went. Can that then be
denied, of which all Asia is witness, that the fleet was distri-
buted into two divisions, so that one division should sail above
Ephesus, the other below Ephesus 1 in the one fleet Marous
Orassus, that most noble ma,n, sailed from ^nas to Asia;
with the other division Flaccus sailed from Asia to Mace--
donia. In what then is it that we look in vain for the dili-
gence of the praetor ? Is it in the number of the ships, or in
ike equal division of the expense ? He demanded just one
half the fleet which Pompeius required. Could he be more
economical 1 And he divided the expense according to the
proportions settled by Pompeius, which was adapted to the
division made by Sylla, who, when he had arranged all the
cities in Asia according to the proportion that they were to
bear of i^e expense imposed on the whole provinces, adopted
a rule which Pompeius and Flaccus followed in raising the
necessary sums, and even to this day the whole sum is
not collected. But he makes no return of it. "What does
he gain by that 1 for when he takes on himself the burden
of having levied the money, he avows what you wish to
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440 oioebo'b orations.
have considered as a crime. How then can any one be in-
duced to believe that^ by not returning an account of that
money, he deserves to bring an accusation on himself when
there would be no crime at all in the business if he made
the return ] But you deny that my brother, who succeeded
Lucius Flaccus, levied any money for the purpose of crews
for the fleet. Indeed, I am delighted to hear this praise of
my brother Quintus, but I am still more pleased at other
and more important reasons for praise of him. He decided
on a different course ; he saw a different state of things. He
thought that whenever any intelligence of pirates was re-
ceived, he could get together a fleet as suddenly as he could
wish. And lastly, my brother was the very first man in Asia
who ventured to reheve the cities from this expense of fur-
nishing crewa But it is usual to think that a crime, when
any one establishes charges which had not been established
before ; not when a successor merely changes some of the
charges established by his predecessors. Flaccus could not
know what others would do after his time ; he only saw what
others had done.
XY. But some mention has been made of charges brought
by the common consent of all Asia; I will now touch on the
cases of individual cities — and of ^em, the first that I will
speak of shall be the city of iEmon. llie crier with a loud
voice calls for the deputies from iEmon ; one comes forward,
Asclepiadea Let them come forward. Have you compelled
even the crier to proclaim a lie? I suppose this one deputy
is a man who can support the dignity of his city by his sole
authority; — a man condemned by decisions involving the
greatest infamy in his own city ; stigmatised in the pubho
records; of whose disgracefrd acts, and adulteries, and hcen-
tiousness there are letters of the people of .^mon in existence;
which I think it better to pass over, not only on accoimt of
their length, but on account of the scandalous obscenity of
the language. He said that two hundred and six thousand
drachnuks had been given to Flaccus at the public expensa
He only said so — ^he produced no confirmation of his state-
ment, no proof; but he added this, — which most certainly he
ought to have proved, for it was a personal affidr of his own,
— ^that he, as a private individual, had paid two hundred and
six thousand drachmas. The quantity that that most impu-
dent man says was taken from him was a sum that he never
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FOB L. FLAOOUS. 441
even ventured to wish to be the possessor of. He says that
he gave it as a contribution from Aulus Sextilius, and from
his own brothers. Sextilius was able to give such a sum ; as
for his own brothers, they are partners in his be^ary. Let us
then hear what Sextilius says ; then let his brothers them-
selves come forward ; let them lie as shamelessly as they
please, and let them say that they gave what they never pos-
sessed ; still, perhaps, when they are produced face to face
with us, they will say something in which they may be de-
tected. " I have not brought Sextilius with me as a witness,"
says he. Give me the accounts then. " I have not brought
them down." At least produce your brothers. " I never
summoned them." Are we then to fear as an accusation or
as a piece of evidence, what Asclepiades by himself affirms, a
man needy as to fortune, infemous as to character, condemned
by every one's opinion, relying on his own impudence and
audacity, without any account-books or any one to. support
his evidence] He also said that the panegyric which we
mentioned as having been given by the men of Mmon to
Flaccus, is false ; a jwui^yric, says he, which we ought to
be glad to be without. For when that admirable represen-
tative of his city beheld the public seal, he said that his own
fellow-citizens and all the rest of the Greeks were accustomed
to seal at the moment whatever required it Do you then
take that panegyric to yourself For the life and character
of Flaccus do not depend on the evidence of the citizens of
^mon. For you grant to me, (an admission which this
cause especially requires,) that there is no authority, no con-
sistency, no firm wisdom in the Greeks, and, above all, no
proper regard to truth in giving their evidence ; unless, in-
deed, henceforward there is to be this distinction made be-
tween the evidence and your speech, that the cities are to be
said to have allowed something to Flaccus when absent, but
are to appear to have neither written nor sealed anything
suited to the occasion, so as to save Lselius, though he was
present, though he himself undertook the management of the
business himself, and though he alarmed them and threat-
ened them, availing himself of the power of the law, of
the privil^es of a prosecutor, and of all his own private
resources.
XVI. In truth, 0 judges, I have often seen important facts
detected and discovered through mere trifles, as in the case of
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442 dOSBO's OBATIOHB.
this Asclepiades. This panegyric, which has been produced
by us, had been sealed with that Asiatic chalk which is known
to nearly all of us ; which all men use not only on public but
also on their private letters, and which we every day see used
in letters sent by publicans, and in letters addressed to each
individual among us. Kor indeed did the witness himself
when he saw the seal, say that we were producing a forged
document^ but he alleged the worthless character of all
Asiatics, — ^a matter which we willingly and easily grant to him.
Our panegyric then, — ^which he says was given to us because of
that particular occasion, and by so saying in &ct allows was
given to us, — was sealed with chalk. But on that evidence,
which is said to have been given to the prosecutor, we saw the
seal was wax. Here, 0 judges, if I thought that you wdre
influenced by the decrees of the JSmonensians, and by the
letters of the rest of the Phrygians, I should cry out, and
argue with all the vigour of wlach I was master. I should
call to witness the publicans ; I should invoke the traders ; I
should implore the aid of your own consciences : the wax
being seen, I shoi^d feel sure that the audacious forgery of
the whole evidence was evidently detected and ^discovered, and
laid bare to you. But at present I will not triumph too
violently, nor be too much elated at this, nor will I inveigh
against that trifler as if he were a witness, nor will I allow
myself to be moved at all with respect to any part of this
testimony of the iEmonensians, whether it has. been forged
here, as appears likely on the face of it, or whether it has
really been sent from JEmon, as it is said to have been. In
truth, I will not fear the evidence of the men to whom I
make over that panegyric, since, as Asclepiades says, they are
utterly insignificant
XVII. I come now to the evidence of the people of Dory-
beum, who, when they were brought into coiui;, said that they
had lost their public documents near some cavema O the
shepherds (I know not who they were), the literary shepherds !
if they took nothing from those men '^cept the letters ! But
we suspect that there is some other reason, and that we should
not think those men quite destitute of all cunning. There is,
I imagine, a heavier penalty at Dorylseum than among other
people, for forging or tampering with written documents. If
they had produced the genuine letters, there was no accusa-
tion in them; if they produced foi^ged ones, there was a
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FOR L. FLAOCUB. 443
penalty for such an act. They thought the finest thing they
could do was to say that they were lost Let them be quiet
then, and allow me to set this down as so much gain, and to
turn to something- else. They will not allow me to do so.
For some one or other gives them a lift, and says that -he, as
a priyate person, had given him money. But this cannot
possibly be endured. He who reads things from those public
documents which have been in the power of the prosecutor,
ought not to carry any wei^t with him ; but^ nevertheless, a
formal trial appears to take place when the documents them-
selves, of whatever character they may be, are produced. But
when a man, whom not one of you has ever seen, whom no
living mortal has ever heard of, only says, " I gave," will you
hesitate, 0 judges, to save a most noble citizen from this most
unknown of Phrygians 1 And this very man was lately dis-
believed by three honourable and worthy Roman knights,
when in a case in which a man's liberty was at stake, he
said that the man who was claimed was his own kinsman.
How has it come about that the man who was not considered
a trustworthy witness as to his own blood and family, is a
credible authority concerning a public injury? And when this
Dorylsean was lately carried out to burial in the presence of a
great midtitude and numerous assembly of you, Laelius tried
to excite odium against Lucius Flaccus by imputing his death
to him. You are acting unjustly, 0 Laelius, if you think that
it is our risk whether your comrades live or die ; especially as
I think that this instance proceeded from your own careless-
ness. For you gave a Phiygian, a man who had never seen a
fig-tree, a whole basket of figs ; and his death was to some
extent a relief to you, for you lost a very voracious guest.
But what good did it to Flaccus, as he was well enough till
he came forward here, and who died after he had put out his
sting and delivered his evidence] But that prop of your
cause, Mithridates, was retained as a witness by us and ex-
amined two whole days; and, after he had said all that he
wished, departed reproved, convicted, and broken down, and
now walks about in a breastplate. That learned and sagacious
man is afraid that Lucius Flaccus may burden himself with a
crime, now that he cannot escape him as a witness ; so that
he, who, before the evidence was given, Restrained himself
when he might have got something by the deed, is likely now
to add the guilt of an enormous crime to the charge of covet-
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444 CIORBO^S ORATIONS.
ousness, which is only supported by &lse eyidence. But since
Quintus Hortensius has spoken at great length and with great
acuteness concerning this witness, and respecting the whole
charge which has reference to Mithridates, we, as we originally
intended, will proceed to the other points.
• XVIII. The principal man in stirring up all the Greeks, —
he who is sitting with the prosecutors, — Heraclides of Temnos,
a silly chattering fellow, but (in his own opinion) so learned,
that he calls himself even their tutor, and so ambitious, that
he salutes all of you and of us every day. Old as he i% he
has not yet been able to get admission into the senate of
Temnos; and he, the man who professes himself able to teach
the art of speaking to others, has himself been convicted in
some very discreditable trials. Of similar good fortune was
Nicomedes^ who came with him as a deputy, who was not
allowed to enter the senate on any terms, but had been con-
victed of theft, and of defrauding his partner. For Lysanias,
the chief man of the deputation, obtained the rank of senator ;
but as he showed himself rather too much devoted to the
riches of the republic, he was convicted of peculation, and lost
his property and his title of senator. These three men tried
to render liie accounts of even our own treasury &lse. For
they returned themselves as having nine slaves, when they had
in reality come without one single companion. I see at the
first framing of the decree Lysanias was present, he, whose
brother's property was sold by public order during the prsetor-
ship of Fiaeous, because he did not pay what he owed to the
people. Besides him there is Philippus, the son-in-law of
Lysanias ; and Hermobius, whose brother also, by name Poles,
was convicted of embezzling the public money.
XIX. These men say that they gave Flaccus and those who
were with him fifteen thousand drachmas. I h^ve to do with
a most active city, and one which is an admirable hand at
keeping its accounts ; a city in which not a &rthing can be
disposed of without the intervention of five praetors, three
quaestorEf, and four bankers, who are elected in that city by the
burgesses Of all that number not one has been brought
hither as a witness; and when they return that money as
having been given to Flaccus by name, they say that they
gave him also a still larger sum, entered as having been given
for the repair of a temple. But this is not a veiy consistent
story ; for either everything ought to have been kept secret, or
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von L. PLACcus. 445
else everythiuLg ought to have been returned without any dis-
gaise. When they enter the money as having been given to
Flaccus, naming him expressly, they fear nothing, they appre-
hend nothing. When they return the money as having been
given for a public work, then all of a sudden those same men
begin to be afraid of the very man whom they had despised
before. If the prsetor gave fiie money, as it is set down, he
drew it from the qusestor, the qucestor from the public bank,
the public bank derived it either from revenue or from tribute.
All this will never be like a crime, unless you explain to me
the whole business both with respect to the persons and to the
accoimts. Or, as it is written in this same decree, that the
most illustrious men of the city, — ^menwho had had the highest
honours of the state conferred on them, — were circimivented
by him while he was praetor, why are they not present in
court, or why, at all events, are they not named in the decree ?
For I do not suppose that Heraclides, who is pricking up his
head, is the person here intended. For is he one of the most
eminent of the citizens, when Hermippus brought him here
for trial ? a man who 6id not even receive his present com-
mission to come on this deputation from his fellow-citizens by
their volimtary choice, but who went all the way from Tmolus
to solicit it ? a man on whom no honour was ever conferred
in his own city; and the only business which ever has been
entrusted to him, is one which is usually entrusted to the
most insignificant people. He, in the prsetorship of Titus
Aufidius, was appointed guardian of the public com. And
when he had received money from Publius Varinius the
praetor for this purpose, he concealed it from his fellow-
citizens, and charged the whole of the expense to them. And
after this was made known and revealed at Temnos, by letterd
which were sent thither by Publius Varinius, and when Cnseus
Lentulus, he who was the censor, the patron of the people of
Temnos, had sent letters on the same subject, no one ever
afterwards saw that man Heraclides at Temnos. And that
you may be thoroughly aware of his impudence, listen, I
entreat you, to the cause which excited the animosity of this
most worthless man against Flaccus.
XX. He bought at Rome a ferm in the district of Cyme,
from a minor whose name was Meculonius. Having made
himself put in words to be a rich man, — though he had in
reality nothing beyond the stock of impudence which you
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446 OIOBBO'S OBAHONS.
see, — he borrowed the money from Sextus Stola, one of our
judges now present, a man of the highest consideration, who
is acquainted with the circumstances, and not unacquainted
with the man; but who trusted him on the security of Publiua
Fulvius Veratius, a most imexceptionaHe man. And to. pay
this loan he borrowed money of Gains and Marcus Fufiua,
Roman knights, men of the highest character. Here, in
truth, he caught a weasel asleep, as people say; for he cheated
Hermippus, a learned man, his own fellow-citizen, who ought
to have known him well enough ; for on his security he bor-
. rowed money of the Fufii. Hermippus, without feeling any
anxiety, goes away to Temnos, as he said that he would pay
the Fufii the money which he had borrowed on his security,
out of what he received from his pupils. For he, as a rheto-
rician, had some rich men for pupils whom he was going to
make as foolish again as they were when they came to him,
(for they could acquire nothing from him, except an ignorance
of every sort of learning ;) but he could not infatuate any
one to such an extent as to get him to lend him a single
&rthing. Therefore, having left Rome secretly, and cheated
numbers of people by trifimg loans, he came into Asia; and
when Hermippus asked him what he had done about the bond
given to the Fufii, he said that he paid the entire sum to the
Fufii. In the mean time, not long afterwards, a freedman
comes to Hermippus with letters from the Fufii The money
is demanded of Hermippus. Hermippus demands it of
Herachdes ; however, he himself satisfies the claim of the
Fufii, who are at a distance, and discharges the security which
he had given. He then prosecutes Heraclides, in spite of all
his filming and shuffling, in a formal manner : the cause is
tried before judge&
Do not fancy, 0 judges, that the impudence of cheats and
repudiators is not one and the same in all places. This man
did the very same things which debtors here are in the habit
of doing. He denied that he had ever borrowed any money
at all at Rome. He asserted that he had actually never heard
the name of the Fufii ; and he attacked Hermippus himself
a most modest and virtuous man, an ancient friend and
hereditary connexion of my own, the most eminent and
accomplished man in his city, with every sort of reproach
and abuse. But after this voluble gentleman had delivered
himself in that fashion with a prodigious rapidity of eloquence
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FOB L. FLACCUS. 447
for some time, all of a sudden, when the evidence of the
Fufii and the items of their claim were read, though a most
audacious man, he got alarmed; though a mo«t talkative one,
he became dumb. Therefore, the judges at the first trial gave
a decision against him, in a matter which certainly did not
admit of much doubt As he did not comply with their
decision, he was given up to Hermippus, and put in prison
by him.
XXI. Now you know the honesty of the man, and the
value of his evidence, and the whole reason of his enmity to
Flaccus. Having been released by Hermippus after having
sold him a few slaves, he came to Rome, from thence he
returned into Asia, when my brother Quintus had succeeded
Flaccus in that government, and went to him and related his
story in this manner; saying that the judges, being com-
pelled and put in fear by the violence of Flaccus, had given a
false decision against their wiU. My brother, as became his
impartiality and prudence, decreed that if he demurred to
the previous decision, he was to give security to double the
amoimt; and that if he said that they were compelled by
fear at tiie first trial, he should have the same judges again.
He refused this; and as if there had been no trial and no
decision, he began on the spot to demand back from Her-
mippus the slaves which he himself had sold him. Marcus
Gratidius, the lieutenant, before whom he went, reftised to
give him leave to proceed with the action, but declared that
he should adhere to the decision already given. A second
time, as he had no place anywhere where he could remain, he
betook himself to Rome. Hermippus, who never yields to
his impudence, follows him hither. Heraclides demands from
Caius Plotius, a senator, a man of the highest character, who
had served in Asia as lieutenant, some slaves, which he said
he had sold imder compulsion, at a time when an unjust
decision had been given against him. Quintus Naso, a most
accomplished man, who had been prsetor, is appointed judge ;
and when he showed that he was going to give sentence in
favour of Plotius, Heraclides left the judge, and abandoned
the whole cause as if he had not had a fair and legal trial.
Do I appear to you, 0 judges, to be dwelling too much on
each individual witness, and not to be discussing the whole
class of witnesses, as I originally intended ? I come now to
Lysanias, of the same city, — ^your own especial witness, Becia-
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448 OIOBBO'S ORATIONS.
nus, — a man whom you, as you had known him at Temnos
when a youth, since he had pleased you when naked, wished
to be always naked. You took him from Temnos to Apol-
lonia. You lent money to him while quite a youth, at great
interest, having taken good seciu-ity for the loan. You say
that the securities have been forfeited to you, and to this day
you detain them and keep them in your possession. And you
have compelled this man to come forward to give evidence
as a witness by the hope of recovering his paternal estate.
And as he has not yet given his evidence, I am waiting to see
what it is that he will state. For I know the sort of men
that they are, — I know their habits, I know their licentious
ways. Therefore, although I am certain what he is prepared
to state, still I will not argue against it before he hais stated
it ; for if I do, he will alter it all and invent something else.
Let him, then, keep what he has prepared ; and I will keep
myself fresh for whatever statements he makes.
XXII. I come now to that state to which I myself have
shown great kindness and done many great services,, and
which my brother has shown the greatest attachment to and
fondness for. And if that city had brought its complaints
before you by the mouth of creditable and respectable men,
I should be a little more concerned about it ; but now what
am I to think ? Am I to think that the Trallians entrusted
their cause to Maeandrius, a needy, sordid man, without
honour, without character, without income) Where were
the Pythodori, the ^tideni, the Lepisos, and the other men
who are well known among us, and who are of high rank
among their own people 1 where is their splendid and high-
spirited display of the respectability of their dty ? Would
they not have been ashamed, if they had been serious about
this business, that Maeandrius should be called, I will not say
their deputy, but even a Trallian at all ? Would they ever
have entrusted to this man as their deputy, — to this man as
their public witness, Lucius Flaccus the hereditary patron of
their city, whose father and ancestors had been so before him,
to be ruined by the evidence of their city ? This cannot be
the fact, 0 judges; it nevw can be.
I myself lately saw in some trial a Trallian witness of the
name of Philodorus, I saw Parrhasius, I saw Archidemus,
when this identical man Meeandrius came to me as a sort of
attorney, suggesting to me what I might say, if I pleased.
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VOR L. FLAOCUS. ti^
agaiiist his own fellow-citizeiis aud his own city. For there
is nothing more worthless than that fellow, — ^nothing more
needy/nothing more in&mous. Wherefore, if the Trallians
employ him as the relator of their indignation, and the keeper
of their letters, and the witness of tiieir injuries, and the
ntterer of their complaints, let them lower their high tone
for the future, let them restrain their high spirit, let them
bridle their arrogance, let them confess that tiie best repre-
sentative of their city is to be foimd in the person of Msean-
drius. But if they themselves have always thought this man
a man to be buflfeted and trampled upon at home, let them
cease to think that there is any authority in that evidence
which there is no respectable person to father.
XXIII. But I will explain what the fects of the case really
are, that you may know why that city was neither severe in
attacking Flaccus, nor very anxious to defend him. The oity
was offended with him on account of the affidr of Castricius ;
concerning the whole of which Hortensius has made a sufii-
cient reply. Very much against its will, it had paid Cas-
tricius some money which had long been due to him. Hence
comes all its hatred to Flaccus, and this is his whole offence.
And when Lselius had arrived in that city among a set
of angry men, and had re-opened their indignation with
respect to Castricius by mentioning the subject, flie chief men
jumped up and left the place, and refused to be present in
that assembly, and would not assist in carrying the decree, or
in framing the deposition. And to such an extent was that
assembly deprived of the presence of the nobles of the oity,
that Mseandrius was the chief of the chief men present ; and
it was by his tongue, acting like a sort of &n of sedition, that
assembly of needy men was ventilated. Therefore, now learn
the justice of the grief and complaints of a city, a moderate
city as I have always considered it, and a worthy one, as the
citizens themselves wish it to be thought. They complain
that the money which was deposited amongst them, in the
name of Flaccus's father, — money which had been collected
from different cities, — has been taken away from them. At
another time I will inquire of them what power Flaccus had
in the matter. At present I only ask the Trallians, whether
they say the money, which they complain has been taken
from them, was their own, — was a contribution from the
other cities for their use. I wish to hear this. We do not
VOL. II. 0 a
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450 aCEBO*S ORATIONS.
say so, says he. What then? We say that it was brought to
us — entrusted to u& in the name of Lucius Flaccus, the &1iier
of this man, for the days of festival and the games which
were to be celebrated in his honour. What then 1 ** This
you had no right to touch." Presently I will see to that;
but first of all I will deal with this. A dignified, a wealthy,
a noble city complains that it is not allowed to retain what
does not belong to it. It says that it has been plund^ned,
because it has not in its possession what never was its own.
What can be said or imagined more shameless than this ? A
town was selected in which, above all others, the money ccm-
tributed by all Asia for the honours of Lucius Flaccus should
be deposited. All this money was transferred fiwm the pur-
pose of doing him honour, and employed in gainful traffic
and usury. Many years afterwards it was recovered.
XXIV. What injury was done to the city? "But the
city is very indignant at it." I dare say. For the profit is
wrenched frotn it contrary to its hopes, which had aheady
been devoured in expectation. "But it complains;" and a
most impudent complaint it is. For we cannot leasonaUy
complain of everything at which we are annoyed. "But
it accuses him in the sev^:est language." Not the city,
but ignorant men do so, who have been stirred up by Maan-
drius. And while on this topic I beg you over and over again
to recollect how great is the rashness of a multitude, — how
great the peculiar levity of Greeks, — and how great is the in-
fluence of a seditious speech in a public assembly. Even
here, in this most dignified and well-regulated of cities, when
the forum is full of courts of justice, full of magistrates, full
of most excellent men and citizens, — ^when the senate-house,
the diastiser of rashness, the directress in the path of duty,
eommands and surveys the rostra, still what storms do we
see excited in the public assemblies ? What do you think is
the case at Tralles ? is it the same as is the case at Pergamus?
Unless, perchance, these cities wish it to be beheved that they
could more easily be influenced by one letter of Mithridates,
and impelled to violate the claims of their friendship with the
Eoman people, and their own plighted £Edth, and all the rights
and duties (^ humanity, than to injure by their evidence the
son of a man whom they had thought it necessary to drive
ftom their walls by force of arms. Do not, then, oppose to
me the names of those noble cities, for those whom this
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FOB L. PLAOCUS. 451
femily has scorned as enemies, it will never be a&aid of as
witnesses. But you must confess, if your cities are governed
by the counsels of your chief men, that it was not by the
rashness of the multitude, but by the deliberate counsel of
the nobles, that war was imdertaken by those cities against
the Eoman people ; or if that disturbance was at that time
caused by the rashness of the ignorant mob, then permit me
to separate the errors of the Roman people from tiie general
cause.
XXV. " But he had no right to lay hands on that money."
Had his father Flaccus a right to touch it or not ? If he had
a right, as he undoubtedly had, to take money which had
been contributed for the purposes of his honours, then the
son did right in taking away the money belonging to his
fiither from those men from whom he on his own account
took nothing ; but if the father Flaccus had not a right to
take it, still after his death, not only his son, but any heir,
must have had a perfect right to take it. And at that time,
indeed, the Trallians, as they themselves had been for many
years putting out that money at high interest, nevertheless
obtained from Flaccus all that they desired ; nor were they
go shameless as to venture to say what Lselius said, — ^namely,
that Mithridates had taken this money from them. For who
was there who did not know that Mithrida4;es was more
anxious about adorning Tralles than plundering it ? And if
I were to speak of these matters as they ought to be spoken
of, I should, 0 judges, press more strongly than I have as yet
done, the point of how much credit it was reasonable for you
to give Adatic witnesses. I should recal your recollections to
the time of the Mithridatic war, to that miserable and inhuman
massacre of all the Eoman citizens, in so many cities, at one
and the same moment. I should remind you of our praetors
who were surrendered, of our ambassadors who were thrown
into prison, of almost all memory of the Roman name and
every trace of its empire effitced, not only from the habitations
of the Greeks, but even from their writings. They called
Mithridates a god, they called him their hther and the pre-
server of Asia, they called, him Evius, Nysius, BacchuSj,
Liber. It was the same time, when all Asia shut its gates
against Lucius Flaccus, the consul, and not only received that
Cappadocian into their cities, but even spontaneously invited
him. Let us be allowed, if not to forget these things, at least
qq2
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i52 CIOBBO^S OBATIONS.
to be silent respecting them. Let me be allowed rather to
complain of the inconstancy of the Greeks than of their
crudty. Are these two men to have influence with a people
which they wished utterly to destroy ? For whomsoever they
could they slew while in the garb of peace ; as fer as depended
on them they annihilated the name of Roman citizens.
XXVI. Shall they then give themselves airs in a city
which they hatef among those people whom, if they had
their will, they would not look upon f in that republic to the
destruction of which it was their power that was unequal,
and not their inclination f Let them behold this noble body
of ambassadors and panegyrists of Flaccus who have come
from the real honest Greece. Then let them weigh them-
selves in the balance, let them compare themselves with these
men ; then, if they dare, let them compare their dignity with
that of these men.
Athenians are here, citizens of that city from which civili-
zation, learning, religion, com, laws, and institutions are sup-
posed to have arisen, and to have been disseminated over the
whole earth — ^that city, for the possession of which there is said
to have been, by reason of its beauty, a contest even^ among
the gods : a city which is of that antiquity that she is said
to have produced her citizens from her own womb, so that the
same land is called the parent, and nurse, and country of her
people. And she is of such authority that the name of
Greece, now enfeebled and almost broken, rests upon the
gloiy of this city.
LacedaDmonians are here ; men of that city, whose tried and
glorious virtue is considered not only to be implanted in them
by nature, but also to be fortified by discipline. The only
men in the whole world who have been living for now seven
hundred years and more under one system, and under laws
which have never been altered
Many deputies are here from all Achaia, Boeotia, and Thes-
saly, places in which Lucius Flaccus has lately been in com-
mand as lieutenant, imder Metellus as commander-in-chief
Nor do I pass you over, 0 Marseilles, you who have known
Lucius Flaccus as soldier and as quaestor, — ^a city, the strict
discipline and wisdom of which I do not know whether I
might not say was superior, not only to that of Greece, but to
that of any nation whatever ; a city which, though so hr
sepai-ated from the districts of all the Greeks, and from their
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FOB L. FLACOUS. 453
feshions and language, and though placed in the extremity of
the world and surrounded by tribes of Gauls, and washed with
the waves of barbarism, is so regulated and governed by the
counsels of its chief men, that there is no nation which does
not find it easier to praise its institutions than to imitate
them. Flaccus has these states as his panegyrists and as
witnesses of his innocence, so that we may resist the covetous-
ness of some Greeks by the assistance of others.
XXVII. Although, who is there who is ignorant, provided
he has only taken the most ordinary trouble to make himself
acquainted with these matters, that there are in reahty three
different races of Greeks ; of which the Athenians are one,
being considered an Ionic nation ; the iEolians are another ;
the third were called Dorians. And the whole of this land
of Greece, which flourished so greatly with fame, with glory,
with learning, and many arts, and even with wide dominion
and military renown, occupies as you know, and always has
occupied, but a small part of Europe. It surrounded the sea-
coast of Asia with cities after it had subdued it in war ; not
in order to increase the prosperity of Asia by fortifying it
with colonies, but in order to keep its hold upon it by placing
it in a state of siege. Wherefore I beseech you, 0 you Asia-
tic witnesses, that when you wish to recoUect with accmracy
what amount of authority you bring into a court of justice,
you would yourselves describe Asia, and remember, not what
foreigners are accustomed to say of you, but what you your-
selves afl&rm of your own races. For, as I think, the Asia
that you talk of consists of Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, and Lydia.
Is it then a proverb of ours or of yours that a Phrygian is
usually made better by beating 1 What more ? Is not this
a common saying of you all with respect to the whole of
Caria, if you wish to make any experiment accompanied with
danger, that you had better try it on a Carian 1 Moreover
what sa3ring is there in Greek conversation more ordinary and
well known, than, when any one is spoken of contemptuously,
to say that he is the very lowest of the Mysians 1 For why
should I speak of Lydia ? What Greek ever wrote a comedy
in which the principal slave was not a Lydian ? What injury,
then, is done to you, if we decide that we are to adhere to the
judgment which you have formed of yourselves ] In truth,
I think that I have said enough and more than enough of the
whole race of witnesses from Asia. But still it is your duty.
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454 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
0 judges, to weigh in your minds and thoughts everything
which can he said against the insignificance, the inconstancy,
and the covetousness of the men, even if these points are not
sufficiently enlarged upon by me.
XXVIII. The next thing is that charge about the Jewish
gold. And this, forsooth, is the reason why this cause is
pleaded near the steps of Aurelius. It is on account of this
charge, 0 Lsehus, that this place and that mob has been
selected by you. You know how numerous that crowd is,
how great is its unanimity, and of what weight it is in the
popular assemblies. I will speak in a low voice, just so as to
let the judges hear me. For men are not wanting who would
be glad to excite that people against me and against eveiy
eminent man ; and I will not assist them and enable them
to do so more easily. As gold, under pretence of being given
to the Jews, was accustomed every year to be exported out of
Italy and all the provinces to Jerusalem, Flaccus issued an
, edict establishing a law that it should not be lawful for gold
to be exported out of Asia. And who is there, 0 judges, who
cannot honestly praise this measure ? The senate had often
decided, and when I was consul it came to a most solemn re-
solution that gold ought not to be exported. But to resist
this barbarous superstition were an act of dignity, to despise
the multitude of Jews, which at times was most unruly in the
assemblies in defence of the interests of the republic, was an
act of the greatest wisdom. " But Cnaeus Pompeius, after he
had taken Jerusalem, though he was a conqueror, touched
nothing which was in that temple." In the first place, he
acted wisely, as he did in many other instances^ in leaving no
room for his detractors to say anything against him, in a city
so prone to suspicion and to evil speaking. For I do not
suppose that the religion of the Jews, our enemies, was any
obstacle to that most illustrious general, but that he was bin*
dered by his own modesty. Where then is the guilt 1 Since
you nowhere impute any theft to us, since you approve of
the edict) and confess that it was passed in due form, and do
not deny that the gold was openly sought for and produced,
the facts of the c^e themselves show that the business was
executed by the instrumentality of men of the highest cha-
racter. There was a hundredweight of gold, more or less,
openly seized at Apamea, and weighed out in the forum
at the feet of the praetor, by Sextus Csesius, a Boman kni^t»
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FOR L. FLAC0U8. 455
a most excellent and upright man ; twenty- pounds weight or
a little more were seized at Laodicea, by Lucius Peducseus,
who is here in court, one of our judges ; some was seized
also ^t Adramyttium, by Cnceus Domitius, the lieutenant, and
a small quantity at Pergamus. The amount of the gold is
known ; the gold is in the treasury ; no theft is imputed to
him ; but it is attempted to render him unpopular. The
speaker turns away from the judges, and addresses himself to
the surrounding multitude. Each city, 0 Lselius, has its own
peculiar religion; we have ours. While Jerusalem was
flourishing, and while the Jews were in a peaceful state, still
the religious ceremonies and observances of that people were
very much at yariance with the splendour of this empire, and
the dignity of our name, and the institutions of our ancestors.
And Ijiey are the more odious to us now, because that nation
has shown by arms what were its feelings towards our supre-
macy. How dear it was to the immortal gods is proved by
its having been defeated, by its revenues having been &rmed
out. N to our contractors, by its being reduced to a state of
subjection.
XXIX. Wherefore, since you see that all that which you
wished to impute to him as a crime is turned to his cr^t,
let us. now come to the complaints of the Eoman citizens.
And let the first be that of Deoianus. What injury, then,
0 Dedanus, has been done to you? You are trading in a fii-ee
city. Firut of all, allow me to be a little curious. How long
shall you continue to live there as a trader, especially since
you are bom of such a rank as you are 1 You have now for
thirty years been frequenting the forum, — ^the forum, I mean,
of Pergamus. After a very long interval, if at any time It is
convenient to you to travel, you come to Rome. You bring
a new face, an old name ; Tyrian garments, in which respect
1 envy you, that with only one cloak you look so smart for
such a length of time. However, be it so. You like to
practise commerce. Why not at Pergamus 1 at Smyrna 1 at
Tralles 1 where there are many Roman citizens, and where
magistrates of our own preside in the courts of justice. You
are fond of ease: lawsuits, crowds, and praetors are odious to
you. You delight in the freedom of the Greeks. Why, then,
do you alone treat the people of Apollonides, the allies who
of all others are the most attached to the Roman people and
the most £uthful; in a more miserable manner than either
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456 CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
Mithridates, or than your own father ever treated themf
Why do you prevent them from enjoying their own liberty ?
why do you prevent them from being free ? They are of all
Asia the most frugal, the most conscientious men, the most
remote from the luxury and inconstancy of the Greeks; they
are &thers of femilies, are content with their own, farmers,
country-people. They have lands excellent by nature, and im-
proved by diligence and cultivation. In this district you wished
to have Some farms. I should greatly prefer, (and it would have
been more for your interest too, if you wanted some fertile
lands,) that you should have got some here somewhere in the
district of Crustumii, or in the Capenate country. However, be
it so. It is an old saying of Cato's, — " that money is balanced
by distance." It is a very long way from the Tiber to the
Caicus, — a, place in which Agamemnon himself would have
lost his way, if he had not found Telephus for his guide. How-
ever, I give up all that You took a fancy to the town. The
country delighted you. You might have bought it.
XXX. Amyntas is by birth, by rank, by imiversal opinion,
and by his riches, the first man of that state. Decianus
brought his mother-in-law, a woman of weak mind, and toler-
ably rich, over to his side, and, while she was ignorant of what
his object was, he established his household in the possession
of her estates. He took away from Amyntas his wife, then
in a state of pregnancy, who was confined with a daughter in
Decianus's house, and to this very day both the wife and
daughter of Amyntas are in Decianus's house. Is there any
one of aU these circumstances invented by me, 0 Decianus f
All the nobles know these feicts — virtuous men are acquainted
with them — our own citizens are acquainted with them — ^all
the merchants of ordinary consequence are - acquainted widi
them. Rise, Amyntas : demand back from Decianus, not. your
money, not your estates ; let him even keep your mother in-
law for himself; but let him restore your wife, let him re*
store the daughter to her miserable father : for the limbs
which he has wcjakened with stones, with sticks, with weapons^
the hands which he has crushed, the fingers .which he has
broken, the sinews which he has cut through, those he cannot
restore. The daughter,— restore the daughter, I say, O Deci-
anus, to her xmhappy father. Do you wonder that you could
not get Flaccus to approve of this conduct? I should like to
Imow who you did persuade to approve of iti You contrived
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FOR L. FLAOOUS. 457
fictitious purchases, you put up advertisements of estates in
concert with some wretched women, — open frauds. According
to the laws of the Greeks it was necessary to name a guardian
to look after these matters. You named Polemocrates, a hired
slave and minister of your designs. Polemocrates was prose-
cuted by Dion for treachery and fraud on account of this very
guardianship. What a crowd was there from all the neigh-
bouring towns on every side ! What was their indignation !
How universal were their complaints ! Polemocrates was con-
victed by every single vote ; the sales were annulled, the ad-
vertisements were cancelled. Bo you restore the property 1
You bring to the men of Pergamus, and beg them to enter in
their public registers, those beautiful advertisements and pur-
chases of yours. They refuse, they reject them. And yet who
were the men who did so ] The men of Pergamus, your own
panegyrists. For you appear to me to boast as much of the
panegyric of the citizens of Pergamus, as if you had arrived
at all the honours which had been attained by your ancestors.
And you thought yourself in this respect better off than
Lselius, that the city of Pergamus praised you. Is the city
of Pergamus more honourable than that of Smyrna '? Even
the men of Pergamus themselves do not assert that.
XXXI. I wish that I had leisure enough to read the decree
of the SmymsBans, which they made respecting the dead
Castricius. In the first place, that he was to be brought into
the city, which is an honour not granted to others ; in the
next place, that young men should bear his coffin; and
lastly, that a golden crown should be put upon the dead body*
These honours were not paid to that most illustrious man,
Publius Scipio, when he had died at Pergamus. But what
language, 0 ye immortal gods, do they use concerning him,
calling him " the glory of his country, the ornament of the
Boman people, the flower of the youth." Wherefore, 0 De-
cianus, if you are desirous of glory, I advise you to seek
other distinctions. The men of Pergamus laughed at you.
What ? Did you not understand that you were being made
sport of, when they read those words to you, " most illustrious
man, of most extraordinary wisdom, of singular ability." I
assure you they were joking with you. But when they put
a golden crown at the head of their letters, in reality they did
not entrust you with more gold than they would trust to
a jackdaw; could you not even perceive the neatness and
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458 OIOERO'S ORATIOKB.
facetiousness of the men ? ' They, then, — ^those men of Per*
gamns, — ^repudiated the advertisements which you producecL
Publius Orbius, a man both prudent and incorruptible, gave
every decision that h^ did give against you.
XXXII. You received more fevour from Publius Globulusi,
an intimate friend of mine. I wish that neither he nor I
may repent it.' ***** ♦
You add real causes of the enmity between you, that your
father as tribune of the people prosecuted the father of Lucius
Flaccus when he was curule sedile. But that ought not to
have been very annoying even to Flaccus's father himself;
especially as he, who was prosecuted, was afterwards made
prsetor and consul, and the man who prosecuted him could
not even remain in the city as a private individual But if
you thought that a reasonable ground for enmity, why, when
Flaccus was military tribune, did you serve as a soldier in his
legion, when by the military law you might have avoided the
injustice of the tribune ? And why did the prsetor summon
you, his hereditary enemy, to his counsels'? And how sacredly
such obligations are accustomed to be observed, you all know.
At present we are prosecuted by men who were our counsel-
lors. " Flaccus issued a decree." Did he issue a different
decree from what he ought? "against freemen." Was it
contrary to the resolution to which the senate had come ?
" He issued this decree against an absent man." When you
were in the same place, and when you refused to come for*
ward, that is a different thing from being absent.
[The resolution of the senate and the decree of Flaccus are read\
What next ? suppose he had not made a decree, but had
only issued an edict, who could have found fault with him
with truth ? Are you going to find fault with the letters
of my brother, full of humanity and equity. The same* letters
which, having been given by me * * * * ♦
Bead the letters of Quintus Cicero.
\The letters of Quintus Cicero are read,'\
What] did the people of Apollonides, when they had an
^ There are a few words here hopelessly cormpt, which are omitted in
the translation. Orellius prints it— "Flaccnm in curia decrevissent
veridicas. Adjungis," etc, and in a note gives up the whole passage
as corrupt. Nobbe puts the stop before veridicas.
* This passage is given up by every commentator as incorably
corrupt.
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FOR L. FLAOOUS. 459
opportunity, report these things to Flaccus ? Were they not
argued in court before Orbius 1 Were they not reported to Or-
bius ] Did not the deputies of ApoUonia report to our senate,
in my consulship, all the demands which they had to make
respecting the injuries which they had received from this one
man, Decianus ?
" Oh, but you gave in an estimate of these farms also at
the census." I say nothing of their being other people's pro-
perty ; I say nothing of their having been got possession
of by violence ; I say nothing of the conviction by the Apol-
lonidians that ensued ; I say nothing of the business having
been repudiated by the people of Pergamus ; I say -nothing of
the fact that restitution of the whole was compelled by our ma-
gistrates; I say nothing of the feet that neither by law, nor in
fetct,nor even by the right of occupation, did they belong to you.
I only ask this ; whether those ferms can be bought and sold by
the civil law ; whether they come under the provisions of the
civil law, whether or no they are freehold, whether they can
be registered at the treasury and before the censor 1 Lastly,
in what tribe did you register those ferms 1 You managed it
so, that if any serious emergency had arisen, tribute might
have been levied on the same ferms both at Apollonides and
at Rome. However, be it so ; you were in a boastful humour.
You wanted a great amount of land to be registered as yours,
and of that land too, which cannot be distributed among the
Roman people. Besides that, you were registered as possessed
of money in hand, cash to the amount of a himdred and thirty
thousand sesterces. I do not suppose that you coimted that
money ; but I pass over all these things. You registered the
slaves of Amyntas ; and, in that respect, you did not wrong ;
for Amyntas is the owner of those slaves. And at first indeed he
was alarmed when he heard that you had registered his slaves.
He consulted lawya^ It was agreed by all of them that if
Decianus could maie other people's property his by registering
it as such, he would have very great * * ♦
XXXIII. You now know the cause of the enmity by which
Decianus was excited to communicate to Lselius this grand
accusation against Flaccus. For Laelius framed his complaint
in this way, when he was speaking of the perfidy of Decia-
nus : " He, who was my original mformant ; who communi-
cated the fiicts of the case ; whom I have followed, he has been
bribed by Flaccus, he has deserted and abandoned me.** Have
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460 CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
you, then, been the prime mover in bringing that man into
peril of all his fortunes, whose coimsellor you had been, with
whom you had preserved all the privileges of your rank, a
most virtuous man, a man bom of a most noble femily, a man
who had done great services to the republic 1 Forsooth, I will
defend Decianus, who has become suspected by you through
no fault of his own. Believe me, he was not bribed ; for what
was there which could have been got by bribing him 1 Could
he have contrived for the trial to last longer 1 Why, the law
only allows six hours altogether. How much would Decianus
rather have taken away from those six hours, if he had wished
to serve you. In truth, that is what he himself suspects, —
you envied the ingenuity of yoiu: junior counsel. Because
he discharged the part which he had undertaken with wit, and
examined the witnesses cleverly,* « * ♦
But if this be probable, at all events it is not very probable
that Decianus was bribed by Flaccus. And the rest of the
case is just as improbable, as is what Lucceius says, that
Lucius Flaccus had wished to give him two millions of ses-
terces to induce him to break his word. Aud do you accuse
that man of avarice who you say was willing to abstain from
taking two millions of sesterces ? For when he was buying
you, what was it that he was buying 1 Was it your desertion
to his side 1 If you did come over to us, what share in the
cause were we to give you 1 were we to allot to you the part
of explaining the designs of Lselius 1 of saying what witnesses
proceeded from his house ? What ? did not we ourselves see
that they were living together ] Who is there who does not
know that ? Is there the slightest doubt that the documents
were in Lselius's power 1 or, was he bribing you not to accuse
him with vigour and with eloquence ? Now you give cause for
suspicion ; for you spoke in such a manner that some point
or other does seem to have been carried with you.
XXXIV. "But a great and intolerable injury was done
to Andrus Sextilius." As, when his wife Valeria had died
without a will, Flaccus managed the business in such a way as
if the inheritance belonged to himself And in that I should
be glad to know what you find fault with, — ^is it, that he as-
serted anything which was false 1 How do you prove it ?
^ What follows here in the text is quite unintelligible, and is given
up by Orellius as hopelessly corrupt ; and probably there is some cor-
ruption for the next few lines which I hare attempted to translate.
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FOE L. PLACOUS, 461
" She was," says he, " a person of good femily.** 0 man»
learned in the law ! What 1 cannot mheritances legally come
from women of good family ? " She was," says he, " under
the power of her husband." Now I understand you ; but
was she so by use^ or by purchase ? It could not be by use ;
for legitimate guardianship cannot be annulled except by the
consent of all the guardians. By purchase ? Then it must
have been with the consenir of all of them ; and certainly
you will not say that that of Flaccus was obtained. That
alternative remains which he did not cease asserting loudly >
*' that Flaccus ought not, when he was prsetor, to have
attended to his own private concerns, or to have made
any mention of the inheritance." I hear, 0 Lucius Lu-
cullus, that very great inheritances came to you, to you
who are about to decide as judge on the case of Lucius
Flaccus, on account of your exceeding liberality and of the
great services which you had done your friends, during the
time that you were governing the province of Asia with
consular power. If any one had said that those inheritances
belonged to him, would you have given them up ? You, 0
Titus Vettius, if any inheritance in Africa comes to you, will
you abandon it 1 or, will you retain it as your own, without
being liable to the imputation of avarice, without any sacrifice
of your dignity ? " But the possession of the inheritance of
which we are speaking was demanded in the name of Flaccus,
when Globulus was praetor." Well then, it was not any sudden
violence, nor the idea of any favourable opportimity, nor
force, nor any peculiarity of time, nor the possession of com-
mand and of the forces which induced Flaccus to commit
this injury.
And^ therefore, it is to this point that Marcus Luroo also, a
most excellent man, and a great friend of mine, has especially
addressed the sting of his evidence. He said, that it was not
becoming for a pnetor in his province to claim money from a
private individual. Why, I should like to know, 0 Lurco, is
it not becoming ? It is not becoming to force or extort money,
or to receive money contrary to the laws ; but you will never
convince me that it is not becoming to claim it, unless you can
show that it is not lawful to do so. Is it right to accept^of
' The marriage per coemptionem has already been explained. '*^ Mar-
riage was also effected by tisua, if a woman lived with a man for a whole
year as his wife."— Smith, Diet. Ant. p. 602, v. Marriage, q. v.
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462 acBRo's obattokb.
honorary lieutenancies for the sake of exacting what is one^s
due, as you yoiu^ves have done lately, and as many good
men have often done, (and I, indeed, find no fkalt witii such
conduct ; I see that our allies complain of it ;) and, do you
think a praetor, if he, being in-his province, does not abandon
an inheritance which comes to him^ is not only to be blamed
but even to be condemned ?
XXXV. "But Valeria," says he, "had given up all her
money as dower to her husband.'* None of those assertions
can be admitted, unless you prove that she was not under the
guardianship of Flaccus. If she was, whatever money on her
marriage was asagned to her husband without his consent,
the assignment is null. But still you saw that Lurco was
angry with Flaccus, although out of regard to his own dignity
he was guided by some moderation in giving his evidence.
For he did not conceal, or think it at all necessary to be silent
about the cause of his anger. He complained that his freed-
man had been condemned by Flaccus when he was prsetor. 0
how miserable is the condition of those who have tie govern-
ment of provinces I in which diligence is sure to bring enmity;
carelessness is sure to incur reproach ; severity is dangerous ;
hberality meets only with ingratitude. The conversation
addressed' to one is insidious ; the flattery with which one is
coiui;ed is mischievous ; the countenance which every one
wears towards you is friendly; the disposition of numbers is
hostile ; dislikes are secret ; caresses are open ; they wait with
eagerness for the coming praetors, they fawn on those who are
present, they abandon and betray those who are departing.
But let us give over complaining, lest we should seem to be
extolling our own wisdom in declining all provinces.
He sent letters about the steward of Publius Septimius, a
man of great accomplishments, which steward had committed
murder. You might have seen Septimius burning with anger.
He allowed (in accordance with his edict) an action against a
freedman of Lurco to proceed. Lurco is his enemy. What
then ? Was Asia to be abandoned to the freedmen of influ-
ential and powerful men? or has Flaccus any personal hostility
of any sort with your freedmen ? or do you hate his severi^
when displayed in your own causes, and in those of your
freedmen, though you praise impartiality when it is we who
are on our trial 1
XXXVI. But that man Andro, who was stripped of all his
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FOB L. FLAOCUS. 4:6$
property, as you say, has not come forward to give his
evidence- What if he had ? Suppose he had come. Caius
Ceecilius was the arbitrator of the settlement come to in that
case. How noble, how upright, how conscientious a man I
Caius Sextilius was a witness to it, the son of Lurco's sister ;
a modest, and consistent, and sensible man. If there was any
violence employed in the business, any fraud, any fear, any
trickery, stiU who compelled any arrangement to he made at
all ? who compelled the parties to have recourse to an arbitra-
tor ? What will you say, if all that money was restored to
this young xnaxx by Lucius Flaccus? if it was claimed by
him? if it was collected for him? and if this was done
through the agency of this Antiochus who is here in court,
the freedman of this youth's father, and a man most highly
esteemed by the elder Flaccus ? Do we not then seem not only
to escape from the charge of covetousness, but even to deserve
the credit of very extraordinary liberality ? For he gave up
to the young man his relation the whole of their joint inherit-
ance, which by law ought to have belonged to both of them
in equal shares ; and he himself touched none of Valeria's
property. What; he had resolved to do, being influenced by
the young man's amiable character, and not by the gi-eat
amount of his patrimony, that he not only did, but ^id most
liberally and comteously. From which it ought to be under-
stood that he had not taken the money in violation of the laws,
when he was so very liberal in abandoning the inheritance.
But the charge respecting Falcidius is a serious one. He
says that he gave fifty talents to Flaccus. Let us hear the
man himself. He is not here. How then does he say it 1
His mother produces one letter, and his sister produces a
second ; and they say that he had written to them to say that
he had given this large sum to Flaccus. Therefore he, whom,
if he were to swear while holding by the altar, no one would
believe, is to be allowed to prove whatever he pleases by a
letter without being put on his oath at all I And what a man
he is ! how unfriendly to his fellow-citizens ; a man who pre-
ferred squanderii^ a sufficiently ample patrimony, which he
might have spent among us here, in Grecian banquets ! What
was his object in leaving this city ? in depriving himself of
the glorious liberty existing here? in undergoing all the
danger of a voyage ? just as if he might not have devoured his
property here at Kome. Now at last this joUy son writes to
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464 0I0ERO*S ORATIONS.
his mother, an old woman not very hkely to suspect him, and
clears himself by a letter, in order to appear not to have spent
all that money with which he had crossed the sea, but to
have given it to Flaccua
X^VII. But those crops of the Trallians had been sold
when Globulus was prsetor. Falcidius had bought them for
nine hundred thousand sesterces. If he gives so much money
to Flaccus, he assuredly gives it to secure the ratification of
that purchase. He then buys something which certainly was
worth a great deal more than he gave for it ; he pays for it
out of lus profit ; he never touches his capital iSierefore he
makes the less profit. Why does he order his Alban hrm to
be sold 1 Why, besides, does he caress his mother in this
way ? Why does he try to overreach the imbeciUty of his
sister and mother by letters ? Lastly, why do we not hear
the man's own statement 1 He is detained, I suppose, in the
province. His mother says he is not. " He would have
come," says the prosecutor, "if he had been summoned." You
certainly would have compelled him to come, if you bad
thought your statement would receive any real confirmation
firom his appearing as a witness. But you were imwiUing to
take the man away from his business. There was an arduous
contest before him ; a very severe battle with the Greeks ;
who, however, as I think, are defeated and overthrown. For
he by 'himself beat all Asia in the size of his cups, and in his
power of drinking. But still, who was it, 0 LseUus, who gave
you information about those letters ^ The women say that
they do not know. Who is it then 1 Did the man himself
tell you that he had written to his sister and mother 1 or did
he write at your entreaty? But do you put no questions to
Marcus -^butius, a most sensible and virtuous man, a relation
of Falcidius 1 Do you decline to examine Cains ManiHus his
. Bon-in-law, a man of equal integrity? men who certainly
must have heard something of so large a sum of money, if it
had been given. Did you, 0 Decianus, think that you were
going to prove so heavy a charge, by reading these letters, and
bringing forward these women, while the author whom you
were quoting was kept at a distance ? Especially when you
yourself, by not producing Falcidius, declared your own opinion
that a forged letter would have more weight than the feigned
voice and simulated indignation of the man himself if present
But why keep on so long discussing and expostulating about
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»0R L. FLAOOUS. 465
the letters of Falcidius, or about Andron Sextilius, or about
the income of Decianus, and say nothing about the safety of
all of us, about the fortunes of the state, and the general
interests of the republic ] the whole of which are at stake
in this trial, and are resting on your shoulders, — on yours, I
say^ you who are our judges. You see in what critical times,
in what uncertain and variable circumstances, we are all at
present placed.
XXXVIII. There are certain men who are planning many
other things, and who are labouring most especially to cause
your inclinations, your formal decisions, and sentences to
appear in a most unfavourable and odious light to all the
most respectable citizens. You have given many important
decisions in a manner suited to the dignity of the republic,
and particularly you have given many respecting the guilt of
the conspirators. They do not think that the republic has
been turned upside down enough, unless they can overwhelm
citizens who have deserved well of the republic, with the same
punishment as that with which this impious manCaius Antonius
has been crushed. Be it so. He had some particular misdeeds
of his own to bear up against. And yet even he (I say this
on my own responsibility) would never have been condemned
if you had been his judges ; he, a man by whose condemnation
the tomb of Catiline was decked with flowers, and the sepul-
chres of all those most audacious men and domestic enemies
were honoured with assemblies and banquets, and by which
the shade of Catiline was appeased. Now an expiation for the
death of Lentulus is sought to be obtained at Flaccus's ex-
pense, and by your instrumentality. What victim can you
offer mpre acceptable to the manes of PubUus Lentidus, —
who intended, after you had been all murdered amid the em-
braces of your children and your wives, to bury you beneath
the burning ruins of your coimtry, — ^than you will offer, if
you satiate his impious hatred towards all of us in the blood
of Lucius Flaccus ? Let us then offer a sacrifice to Lentulus,
let us make atonement to Cethegus, let us recal the exiles,
let us in our turn, if you, 0 judges, think fit, suffer the
punishment due to too great piety, and to the greatest pos-
oible affection towards oxuc country. At this moment we are
being mentioned by name by the informers; accusations
are being invented against us ; dangers are being prepared for
ua And if they did these things by the instrumentality of
VOL. n. H H
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466 CICBBO'S OBATIONS.
others, — ^i^ in short, by using the name of the people, they
had excited a mob of ignorant citizens, we could bear it with
more equanimity.
But this can never be borne, that they should think that,
by means of senators and knights of Rome, who have done all
these things with a view to the safety of all the citizens, by
their common decision, animated with one idea, and inspired
with one and the same virtue, the prime movers, and leaders,
and chief actors in these transactions, can be deprived of all
their fortunes, and be expelled from the city. In truth, they
are acquainted with the feelings and inclinations of the Eoman
people ; by every means which it is master of, the Eoman
people indicates what are its opinions and feelings; there is no
diversity of opinion, or of inclination, or of language. Where-
fore, if any one summons me, I come. I not only do not
object to the Roman people as arbitrators in my cause, but X
even demand them. Let there be no violence ; let weapons
and stones be kept at a distance ; let the artisans depart ; let
the slaves be silent. No one who hears me will be so unjust,
if he be only a'free man and a citizen, as not to think that he
ought rather to think of rewards for me than of punishment.
XXXIX. 0 ye immortal gods ! what can be more miser-
able than this 1 We who wrested fire and sword out of the
hands of Publius Lentulus, are trusting now to the judg-
ment of an ignorant multitude, and are in dread of the
sentence of chosen men and most honourable citizens. Our
fathers by their decision delivered Marcus Aquillius, who had
been convicted of many charges of avarice, proved by abun-
dant evidence, because he had behaved gallantly in the Servile
war. I, when consul, lately defended Cnseus Piso ; who, be-
cause he had been a gallant and fearless consul, was preserved
to the republic uninjured. I, when consul, defended also
Lucius Murena, the consul elect. Not one of the judges in
that case — though they were most eminent men who were
the prosecutors — ^thought that they ought to entertain for
one moment the accusation of bribery, because, while Catiline
was still waging war against the republic, they agreed with me
that it was necessary for them to have two consuls on the
first of January. Aulus Thermius, an innocent and virtuous
man, and one adorned with every sort of distinction, has been
twice acquitted this year, when I have defended him. How
great was the joy, how great were the congratulations of the
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WOR L FLACOUS. 467
Roman people at that event, for the sake of the republic !
Wise and grave judges have dwajs, when deciding in criminal
trials, considered what the interests of the state, and the
general safety^ and the present necessities of the republic re-
quired. When the voting tablets are given to you, 0 judges,
it will not be Flaccus alone who will be interested in their
verdict j the generals and all those who are leaders in the pre-
servation of the city will all be interested ; all good men will be
interested ; you yourselves will be interested ; your children,
your own lives, your country, the general safely, will all be in-
terested in your vote. In this cause you are not determining
about foreign nations, or about the allies; you are deciding on
the welfere of your own selves and your own republic.
XL. And if the consideration of the provinces has more
weight with you than that of your own interests, I not only
do not object, but I even demand that you should be influ-
enced by the authority of the provinces. In truth, we will
oppose to the province of Asia first of all a great part of the
same province, which has sent deputies and panegyrists to
stand up and defend this man from danger; in the next
place we will set against it the province of Gaul, the province
of Cilicia, the province of Spain, and the province of Crete;
and against Greeks, whether they be Lydians, Mysians, or
Phrygians, shall be set the men of Massilia, the Rhodiancf, the
Lacedsemonians, the Athenians, and all Achaia^ Thessaly, and
Boeotia. Septimius and Cselius, the witnesses for them, shall
be balanced by Publius Servilius and Quintus Metellus, as
witnesses of tins man's moderation and integrity. The Asia-
tic jurisdiction shall be replied to by the jurisdiction of the
city ; and the whole conduct and entire life of Lucius Flaccus
shall defend him from accusations brought against him, all
relying on the transactions of a single year.
And if, 0 judges, it ought to avail Lucius Flaccus that, 'as
tribune of the soldiers, as qusBstor, as lieutenant to the most
illustrious generals, he has behaved among the most distin-
guished aimies, and in the most important provinces, in a
manner worthy of his ancestors ; let it also avail him, that
before your own eyes, at a time of general danger to you all,
he united his fate to mine, and shared my danger; let the
paneg3rrics of most honoiu^ble municipalities and colonies
avail him ; let the most glorious and genuine praise of the
Roman senate and Roman people avail him,
hh2
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468 CIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
Oh that night, that night which nearly brought eternal
darkness on this city, when the Gauls were invited to war,
when Catiline was invited into the city, when the conspirators
were invited to bring fire and sword upon us all ; when I, O
Flaccus, invoking heaven and night, was with tears entreating
yoiu* aid, and you in tears were listening to me ; when I cona-
mended to your honest and well-proved loyalty the safety of
the city and of the citizens. You, 0 Flaccus, being at that
time prsBtor, took the messengers of the general destruc-
tion ; it was you who arrested that plague * of the republic
which was contained in letters; you brought the proofe of our
danger, you brought the aid that was to secure our safety to
me and to the senate. What thanks were then given you
by me ! how did the senate, how did all good men thank
you ! Who would then have thought that any good man
would ever refuse to Caius Pomptinus, that bravest of men, or
to you, I will not say safety, but any imaginable honour ? Oh
those nones of December; what a time was that when I was
consul ! a day that I may fairly call the birth-day of this city,
or at all events its day of salvation.
XLI. Oh that night which that day followed ! happy was
it for this city ; but, wretched man that I am, I fear it may
still prove disastrous to me myself What spirit was then
shown by Lupius Flaccus ! (for I will say nothing about my-
self) what devotion to his country, what virtue, what firm-
ness ! But why do I speak of those things which then, at
the time that they happened, were extolled to the skies by
the cordial agreement of all men, by the imanimous voice of
the Koman people, by the testimony in their fevour of the
whole world ? Now I fear, not only that they may be no ad-
vantage to my client, but that they may even be some injury
to him. Indeed, I sometimes fancy that the memory of bad
men is much more lively than that of good men. It is I, if
any disaster happens to you, 0 Flaccus, it is I who shall have
betrayed you ; it is that pledge of mine which will be in
faidt, that promise of mine, that undertaking of mine, when I
promised, tiiat if we by our joint efforts could preserve the
repubhc, you, as long as you lived, should not only be defended,
but also honoured by the espousal of your cause by all virtuous
* He referjj to the ambassadors of the AUobroges, and to the letters
from Lentulus, &c. which were found in their possession. See the
Arguments to the Catilinarian orations.
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FOB L. FLAOOUS. 469
men. I did think, 0 judges, I did hope that, even if our
honour appeared to you a consideration of no importance, at
all events you would take care of our safety. But if, 0 judges,
this terrible injury should overwhelm Lucius Flaccus, (may
the immortal gods avert the omen !) still he will never repent
of having provided for your safety, of having consulted the
interests of you, and of your wives, and of your children, and
your entire welfare. It will always be his feeling that he
owed such sentiments to the nobleness of his race, and to his
religion, and to his country ; do you, 0 judges, take care that
you have no cause to repent of not having spared such a citi-
zen. For how few are they who adopt these principles in the
republic ; who desire only to please you, and men like you ;
who think the authority of every virtuous and honourable
man and body of men of the greatest weight, seeing that that '
path is both the one which leads most easily to honours, and
everything which they desire.
XLII. But let everything else belong to our adversaries :
let them keep to themselves power, and honours, and all the
best opportunities of attaining all other advantages ; let it be
allowed to those men who have striven to preserve all these
things, to be at least safe themselves. Do not think, 0 judges,
that they, who are now starting fresh, who have not as yet
arrived at honours, are not looking anxiously for the result of
this trial If the exceeding afifection of Lucius Flaccus tor all
good men, and his great devotion to the republic, turns out
an injury to him, who do you expect will in future be so
insane, as not to think that path of life which he has hitherto
been accustomed to consider slippery and dangerous, prefer-
able to this level and steady one? But if you, 0 judges,
are tired of such citizens, declare it ; those who can, will
change their opinions; those who have their path still to
choose will soon make up their minds what to do ; we who
have advanced as far as we have, must bear this result of our
rashness. If you wish as many as possible to be of tl^is
opinion, you will declare by this decision what your senti-
ments are. By your decision in this case, 0 judges, you will
give this unhappy suppliant to you and to your children,
precepts by which to regulate his life. If you preserve his
fether to him, you will prescribe to him what sort of citizen
he himself ought to be. If you take his father from him,
you will show that there is no reward held out by you to
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470 OIOKBO'S ORATIONS.
virtuous and wise and consistent conduct. And he now,
(since he is of that age that he is able to feel for his fiither*8
agony, but not yet to be any assistance to his fiBither in his
dangers,) he, I say, entreats you not to ad(i his fiither's tears
to his sorrow, or his weeping to his father's misery. He fixes
his eyes on me also, he implores me by his looks, he, as I may
say, appeals to my good faith, and claims of me that honour
for his father which I once promised him in return for the
safety of his country. Pity his family, 0 judges; pity that
most gallant father; pity the son: preserve to the repubUc
that most noble and glorious name, either for the sake of the
blood, or of the antiquity of the fitmily, or else for the sake
of the individual
THE SPEECH OP M. T. CICERO AFTER HIS RETURN.
APABBSSSD TO THE SEKATB.
THB ABaUMENT.
Cicero by his conduct in the conspiracy of Catiline had made many
enemies, as there were many citizens of high rank and great influence
more or less implicated in that treason. And besides those men, he
had mortally offended a profligate senator, named Clodius, against
whom he had appeared as a witness on a trial for impiety. Clodius,
(by the assistance of Julius Csesar, who was offended with Cicero for
refusing to support the measures of the triumyirate,) got adopted as a
plebeian, in order to be made tribune of the people, so as to have the
g^reater power to annoy Cicero. He was elected tribune a. u. o. 696.
And the consuls, Lucius Calpumius Piso Csesoninus and Aulus
(Jabinius, were also enemies to Cicero. After some preliminary laws,
mostly aimed, in Cicero's opinion, at him, Clodius proposed a special
law, '* that whoeyer had taken away the life of a citizen uncondemned
and without a trial, should be prohibited from fire and water." This
alluded especially to Cicero's haying executed the accomplices of
Catiline ; and he accordingly changed his dress, as it was usual for
people to do in the case of a public impeachment, and appeared in
the streets in a mourning robe, and the whole body of the knights
and the young nobility, to the number of twenty thousand, as he says
himself in his speech to the people after his return, also changed their
dress, and accompanied him about the city to protect him &om the
insults of Clodius's partisans, and to implore the assistance of the
people. And all this body went to the consuls to implore their favour
tor Cicero; but Piso refused to see them, and Gabinius treated
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I. SPEECH AFTER HIS EETUBN. 471
them with the greatest insolence, which caused such indignation in .
the assembly, that Kinnius the tribune made a motion (which was
carried unanimously) that the senate also should put on mourning
robes. The consuls issued an edict forbidding them to do so. On
one occasion Clodius with his slaves fell on Cicero's partisans, and
attacked them so violently that Hortensius was nearly killed, and
Vibienus, a senator, died of the wounds he received. Csssar openly
espoused the cause of Clodius, declaring that he had always thought
the proceedings against Lentulus and the rest irregular and illegal.
And Pompey, who had at first espoused Cicero's cause, began to be
alarmed, and to avoid giving him any effectual assistance. And the
disturbances in Rome rose to such a height, that Cicero, by the advice
of bis friends, and especially of Cato, Hortensius, and Atticus, went
into voluntary exile.
As soon as he had departed, Clodius filled the forum with his own
partisans and his slaves, and proposed a law in the following
terms : ''Whereas Marcus Tullius Cicero has put Roman citizens to
death unheard and uncondemned; and for that end forged the
authority and decree of the senate ; may it please you to ordain that
he be interdicted from fire and water; that nobody presume to
harbour or receive him, on pain of death; and that whoever shall
move, speak, vote, or ti^e any step towards recalling him, shall be
treated as a public enemy, unless those should first be recalled to life
whom Cicero unlawfully put to death." ^ The name of Sedulius, one
of the meanest of the people, was affixed to the law as if he had been
its proposer, who afterwards declared that he was not in Rome at the
time, and that he had known nothing about it.
Cicero went to Thessalonica. He had not been gone more than two
months when Ninnius made a motion in the senate to recal him, and
to repeal the law which Clodius had enacted against him ; and it
would have been carried had not Mlins Ligur, one of the tribunes,
interposed his veto. The senate, however, passed a resolution that no
business should be proceeded with till the consuls had prepared a new
law respecting Cicero's affairs. Pomp^, too, began to feel the want
of Cicero's assistance, and consulted Cesar as to the expediency of
promoting his recal
The new consuls were Publius Cornelius Lentulus, a warm friend of
Cicero, and Quintus Metelliis Nepos, who had been his enemy, but
who now, out of complaisance to the triumvirate, promised to assist
in his restoration. One of the tribunes elect, whose name was Sextus,
was also very eager in his cause ; but Clodius bribed two of those who
were coming into office, Servius Atilius Serranus and Numerius
Quintius Gracchus, to oppose all measures for his restoration. , On the
first of January, the moment that the new consuls entered on their
office, Lentulus made a motion in the senate for Cicero's recal ; Metellus
also spoke in &vour of it, and Cotta, whose opinion was first asked,
declared that as Cicero had not been banished legally, but had only
retired from the city of his own accord for the sake of peace, there was
> I take the terms of this law from Middleton's Life, from which,
indeed, I have abridged this argument; which is in some degree the
argument of the three following speeches.
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472 OIOEBO'S ORATIONS.
no law requisite for his recal, bat that a yote of the senate would be
sufficient. The motion would have passed at once had not Serranns
interposed his veto. Great disturbances ensued in Rome ; FabriciaSy
- one of the tribunes favourable to Cicero, was attacked with a party of
his Mends by Clodius at the head of a band of gladiators, whom he bad
purchased ; and great numbers of citizens were slain, so that Cicero
says, (Pro Sextio, 36 — 38,) that there had never been such bloodshed
in Rome except in the time of Cinna. The senate passed a resolution
that no business should be done till the vote for Cicero's recal was
carried, and ordered the consuls to summon all the people of Italy
who wished well to the state to come to the assistance and defence
of Cicero. Pompey was at this time at Capua acting as chief
magistrate of his new colony, where he presided in person at their
making a decree in Cicero's honour, and took the trouble likewise of
visiting all the other colonies and chief towns in those parts, to
appoint them a day of general rendezvous at Rome to assist at the
promulgation of the desired law. At last a decree to recal Cicero was
carried, to the great joy of all the people ; but for some time Clodios
was enabled to prevent any regular law being passed to that efiect,
till at last all his partisans were afraid to stand by him any longer,
and it was not until the fourth of August that the law was finally
carried.
Cicero, in anticipation of it, had already embarked for Italy, and on the
fifth of August he landed at Brundusium. He was received with the
greatest honours by every town through which he passed on his way
to Rome, and multitudes came from all quarters to see him and to
escort him ; and on his arrival in the city he was received with uni-
versal acclamations.
He arrived in the city on the fourth of September, and the next day the
consuls summoned the senate to give him an opportunity of addressing
that body, when he made the following speech.
I. If, O conscript fathers, I return you thanks in a very in-
adequate manner for your kindness to me, and to my brother,
and to my children, (which shall never be forgotten by us,) I
beg and entreat you not to attribute it so much to any cold-
ness of my disposition, as to the magnitude of the service
which you have done me. For what fertility of genius, what
copiousness of eloquence can be so great, what language can
be found of such divine and extraordinary power, as to enable
any one, I will not say to do due honour to the imiversal
kindness of you all towards us, but even to count up and
enumerate all the separate acts of kindness which we have
received from you 1 You have restored to me my bf"other,
whom I have wished for above all things ; you have restored
me to my most affectionate brother ; you have restored us
parents to our children, and our children to us ; you have
restored to us our dignity, our rank, our fortunes, the re-
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I. SPEECH AFTER HIS RETURN. 473
public, which we reverence above all things, and our country,
than which nothing can be dearer to us ; you have restored
us, in short, to ourselves.
And if we ought to consider our parents most dear to us,
because by them our life, our property, our freedom, and our
rights as citizens have been given to us ; if we love the im-
mortal gods, by whose kindness we have preserved aU those
things, and have also had other benefits added to them ; if
we are most deeply attached to the Roman people, owing to
ihe honours paid to us, by whom we have been placed in this
most noble council, and in the very highest rank and dignity,
and in this citadel of the whole earth; if we are devoted to
this order of the senate, by which we have been frequently dis-
tinguished by most honourable decrees in our favour; — surely
it is a boundless and infinite obligation which we are imder
to you, who, by your singular zeal and unanimity in my
behalf, have combined at one time the benefits done us by
our parents, the boimty of the immortal gods, the honours
conferred on us by the Roman people, and your own frequent
decisions in my case ; in such a manner that, owing, as we
do, much to you, and great gratitude to the Roman people,
and innumerable thanks to our parents, and everything to
the immortal gods, the honours and enjoyments which we
had separately before by their instrumentality, we have now
recovered all together by your kindness.
II. Therefore, 0 conscript fathers, we seem by your agency
to have obtained a species of immortality ; a thing too great
to be even wished for by men. For what time will there ever
be in which the memory and fame of your kindnesses to me
will perish ? The memory of your kindness, who, at the very
time that you were besieged by violence, and arms, and terror,
and threats, not long after my departure, all agreed in recall-
ing me, at the motion of Lucius Ninnius, a most fearless and
virtuous man ; the most faithful, and (if it had come to a
battle) the least timid defender of my safety that that fatal
year could produce. After the power of making a formal
decree to that effect was refused to you by the means of that
tribune of the people, who, as he was unable of himself to
injure the republic, destroyed it, as far as he could, by the
wickedness of another, you never kept silence concerning me,
you never ceased to demand my safety from those consuls
who had sold it Therefore, at last it was owing to your
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474 CICBBO'S ORATIONS.
authority and your zeal that that very year which I had pre-
ferred to have fatal to myself rather than to my country,
elected these men as tribunes, who proposed a law concerning
my safety, and constantly brought it under your notice. For
the consuls being modest men, and having a regard for the
laws, were hindered by a law, not by the one which had been
passed concerning me, but by one respecting themselves, when
my enemy had carried a clause, that when those men had
come to life again who nearly destroyed the state, then I
might return to the city. By which action he confessed two
things, — ^both that he longed for them to be living, and also
that the republic woidd be in great peril, if either the ene-
mies and murderers of the republic came to life again, or if
I did not return.
Therefore, in that very year when I had departed, and when
the chief man of the state was forced to defend his own life,
not by the protection of the laws, but by that of his own
walls, — ^when the republic was without consuls, and bereft, like
an orphan, not only of its regular parents, but even of its
annual guardians, — when you were forbidden to deUver your
opinions, — when the chief clause of my proscription was re-
peatedly read, — still you never hesitated to consider my safety
as united with the general welfare.
III. But when, by the singular and admirable virtue of
Publius Lentulus the consul, you began on the first of January
to see light arising in the republic out of the clouds and dark-
ness of the preceding year, — when the great reputation of
Quintus Metellus, that most noble and excellent man, and the
virtue and loyalty of the praetors, and of nearly all the tri-
bunes of the people, had likewise come to the aid of the
republic, — when CnsBus Pompeius, the greatest man for virtue,
and glory, and achievements that any nation or any age has
ever produced, the most illustrious man that memory can sug-
gest, thought that he could again come with safety into the
senate, — then your unanimity with respect to my safety i^as so
great that my body only was absent, my dignity had already
returned to this country. And that month you were able to
form an opinion as to what was the difference between me and
my enemies. I abandoned my own safety, in order to save
the republic from being (for my sake) stained with the blood
of the citizens ; they thought fit to hinder my return, not
by the votes of the Koman people, but by a river of blood.
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I. SPEEeH AFTER HIS BETUBN. 475
Therefore, after those events, yoi^ gave no answers to the
citizens, or the allies, or to kings ; the judges gave no deci-
sions ; the people came to no vot« on any matter ; this body
issued no declarations by its authority; you saw the forum
silent, the senate-house mute, the city dumb and dispirited.
And then, too, when he had gone away, who, being authorized
by you, had resisted murder and conflagration, you saw men
rushing all over the city with sword and firebrand ; you saw
the houses of the magistrates attacked, the temples of the
gods burnt, the fasces of a most admirable man and illus-
trious consul burnt, the holy person of a most fearless and
virtuous officer, a tribune of the people, not only laid hands
on and insulted, but woimded witk the sword and killed.
And by that murder some magistrates were so alarmed, that,
partly out of fear of death, partly out of despair for the
republic, they in some degree forsook my cause ; but others
remained behind, whom neither terror, nor violence, nor hope,
nor fear, nor promises, nor threats, nor arms, nor firebrands,
could influence so as to make them cease to stand by your
authority, and the dignity of the Koman people, and my
safety.
IV. The chief of those men was Publius Lentulus, the
parent and god of my life, and fortune, and memory, and
na,me. He thought that the best proof that he could give of
his virtue, the best indication that he coidd afford of his dis-
position, the greatest ornament with which he could embellish
his consulship, would be the restoration of me to myself, to
my Mends, to you, and to the republic. And as soon as ever
he was appointed consul elect, he never hesitated to express
an opinion concerning my safety worthy both of himself and
of the repubUc. When the veto was interposed by the tri-
bune of the people, — ^when that admirable clause was read :
" That no one should make any motion before you ; that no
one should propose any decree to you ; that no one shoidd
raise any discussion, or make any speech, or take any vote,
or frame any law ;" he thought all that, as i. have said be-
fore, a proscription and not a law, by which a citizen who
had deserved well of the republic was by name, and without
any trial, taken from the senate and the republic at the same
time. But as soon as he entered on his office, I will not say
what did he do before, but what else did he do at aU, except
labour by my preservation to establish your authority and
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476 CICERO's ORATIONS.
dignity on a firm basis for the future 1 0 ye immortal gods !
what great kindness do you appear to Imve shown me, in
making Publius Lentulus consul this year. How much greater
still would your bounty have been, had he been so the pre-
ceding year ; for I should not have been in want of such
medicine as a consul could give, unless I had fiallen by a
wound inflicted by a consul I had been often told by one
of the wisest of men and one of the most virtuous of citizens,
Quintus Catulus, that it was not often that there was one
wicked consul^ but that there had never been two at the same
time since the foundation of Rome, except in that terrible
time of Cinna. Wherefore, he used to say that my interest
would always be firmly secured, as long as there was even one
virtuous consul in the republic. And he would have spoken
the truth, if that state of things with respect to consuls could
have remained lasting and perpetual, that, as there never had
been two bad ones in the republic, so there never should be.
But if Quintus Metellus had been at that time consul, who
was then my enemy, do you doubt what would have been his
feelings with regard to my preservation, when you see that he
was a mover and seconder of the measure proposed for my
restoration ? But at that time there were two consuls, whose
minds, narrow, contemptible, mean, grovelling, dark, and dirty,
were unable to look properly at, or to uphold, or to support
the mere name of the consulship, much less the splendour of
that honour, and the importance of that authority. They
were not consuls, but dealers in provinces, and sellers of your
dignity. One of whom demanded back firom me, in the hearing
of many, Catiline, his lover ; the other reclaimed ^thegus,
his cousin ; — the two most wicked men in the memory of
man, who (I will not call them consuls, but robbers) not only
deserted, in a cause in which, above all others, the welfare of
the republic and the dignity of the consulship was concerned,
but betrayed me, and opposed me, and wished to see me
stripped of all aid, not only fi-om themselves, but also fi-om
you and from the other orders of the state. One of them,
however, deceived neither me nor any one else.
V. For who ever coidd have any hope of any good existing
in that man, the earliest period of whose life was made openly
subservient to every one's lusts ; who had not the heart to
repel the obscene impurity of men from the holiest portion
of his person 1 who, after he had ruined his own estate with
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, L SPEECH AFTER HIS RETURN. 477
no less activity than he afterwards displayed in his endeavours
to ruin the republic, supported his indigence and his luxury
by every sort of pandering and infamy ; who, if he had not
taken refuge at the altar of the tribuneship, would not have
been able to escape from the authority of the praetor, nor the
multitude of his creditors, nor the seizure of his goods. And
if he had not, while in discharge of that office, passed that
law about the piratical war, he, in truth, would have yielded
to his own poverty and wickedness, and had recourse to
piracy himself ; and he would have done so with less injury
to the republic than he did by remaining within our walls as
an impious enemy and robber. It was he who was inspecting
victims, and sitting in the discharge of that duty, when a
tribime of the people procured a law to be passed that no
regard should be had to the auspices, — that no one should on
that account be allowed to interrupt the assembly or the
comitia, or to put his veto on the passing of a law ; and that
the -^lian and Fufian^ laws should have no validity, which
our ancestors had enacted, intending them to be the firmest
protection of the republic against the insanity of the tribunes.
And he also afterwards, when a countless multitude of vir-
tuous men had come to him from the Capitol as suppliants,
and in moiuning garments, and when all the most noble
young men of Rome, and all the Eoman knights, had thrown
themselves at the feet of that most profligate pander, with
what an expression of countenance did that curled and per-
fumed debauchee reject, not only the tears of the citizens, but
even the prayers of his country ! Nor was his content with
that, but he even went up to the assembly, and there said
what even if his man Catiline had come to life again he
would not have dared to say, — that he woiQd make the
Eoman knights pay for the nones of December of my consul-
ship, and for the Capitoline HiU ; and he not only said this, but
he even summoned those before him that suited him. And
this imperious consul actually banished from the city Lucius
Lamia, a Roman knight, a man of the highest character, and
a very eager advocate of my safety, because of his intimacy
with me, and very much attached to the state, as it was
* " The ^lia lex and Fufia lex were passed about the end of the
sixth century of the city, and gave all magistrates the obnuntiatio,
or power of preventing or dissolving the comitia by observing the
omens, and declaring them to be u^avourable." — Smith, Diet. Ant
p. 660, V. Lex.
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478 aOEBO's ORilTIONS.
likely that a man of his fortune would be. And when you
bad passed a resolution to change your garments, and had
changed them/ and though, indeed, all virtuous men had
already done the same thing, be, reeking with, perfumes, clad
in his toga prsetexta, which all the praetors and sediles had at
that time laid aside, derided your mourning garb, and the
grief of a most grateful dity, and did what no tyrant ever
did, — he issued an edict that you should lament your dis-
asters in secret, and not presume openly to bewail the
miseries of your coimtry.
VI. And when in the Circus Flaminius* (I will not say the
consul had been conducted into the assembly by a tribune of
the people, but) the archpirate had been brought in by
another robber, he came first, a man of what exceeding
dignity, full of wine, sleep, and debauchery I with hair
dripping with ointments, with carefully arranged locks,
with heavy eyes, moist cheeks, a husky and drunken voice;
and he, a grave authority, said that he was greatly displeased
at citizens having been executed without having been formaUy
condemned. Where is it that this great authority has lain
hid so long out of our sight 1 AVhy has the extraordinary
virtue of ^is ringletted dimce been wasted so long in scenes
of debauchery and gluttony 1 For that other man, Csesoni-
nus Calventius, from his youth up has been habituated to the
forum, though, except his assumed and crafty melancholy,
there was no single tiling to reconmiend him, — no knowledge
of the law, no skill in speaking, no knowledge of military
aflfedrs or of men, no liberality. And if, while passing him,
you noticed how imgentlemanlike, and rough, and sulky he
looked, though you might think him a barbarian and a boor,
still you would not suppose him to be lascivious and profligate.
You would think it made no diflference whether you were
standing in the forum with this man, or with a barbarian
from iEthiopia; there he was, in that sense, without flavour,
a mute, slow, imcivilized piece of goods. You would be apt
to suppose him a Cappadocian just escaped out of a lot of
slaves for sale. Then, again, how lustful was he at home, —
how impure, how intemperate. He was not like a front-
door, open for the reception of legitimate pleasures, but
^ The Circus Plaminius was outside the walls of the city, and the
assembly was held there to allow Caesar to be present, who, being now
invested with a military command, could not come into the city.
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I. SPEECH AFTER HIS RETURN. 479
rather a postern for all sorts of secret gratification. And
when he began to devote himself to literature, and, beastly
glutton that he was, to learn philosophy with the Greeks,
then he became an Epicurean, not because he was really much
devoted to that sect, such as it is, but because he was caught
by that one expression about pleasure. And he has masters,
none of those foolish fellows who go on for whole days dis-
cussing duty and virtue, — ^who exhort men to labour, to
industry, to encounter dangers for the sake of their country;
but men who argue that no hour ought to be unoccupied by
pleasure; that in eveiy part of the body there ought always
to be some joy and delight to be perceived. He uses his
masters as a sort of superintendents of his lusts; they seek
out and scent out all sorts of pleasures; they are the seasoners
and furnishers of his banquets; they appraise and value the
different pleasures; they give a formal decision and judgment
as to how much indulgence ought to be allowed to each
separate pleasure. He, becoming accomplished in all these
arts, despised this most prudent city to such a degree, that
he thought that all his lusts and all his atrocities could be
concealed, if he only thrust his ill-omened &uce into the
forum.
VII. He deceived me, though I will not so much say me
(for I know, from my connexion with the Pisos, how much
the Transalpine blood on his mother's side had removed him
from the qiialities of that family), but he deceived you and the
Roman people, not by his wisdom or his eloquence, as is often
the case with many men, but by his wrinkled brow and solemn
look. Lucius Piso, did you dare at that time, with that eye,
(I will not say with that mind,) with that forehead, (I will not
say with that character,) and with that arrogance, (for I
cannot say, after such achievements,) to unite with Aulus
Gabinius in forming plans for my ruin ? Did not the odour
of that man's perfumes, or his breath reeking with wine, or
his forehead marked with the traces of the curling-iron, lead
you to think that, as you were like him in reality, you were
no longer able to use the impenetrability of your countenance
to conceal such enormous atrocities ? Did you dare to com-
bine with that man to abandon the consular dignity, — the
existing condition of the republic, — the authority of the
senate, — the fortunes of a citizen who had above all others
deserved well of the republic, to the provinces ? While you
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480 OIGEBO'S ORATIONS.
were consul, according to your edicts and commands, it was
not allowed to the Eoman senate or people to come to the
assistance of the republic, I will not say by their votes and
their authority, but even by their grief and their mourning
garb.
Did you think that you were consul at Capua, a city where
there was once the abode of arrogance, or at Rome, where all
the consuls that ever existed before you were obedient to the
senate ? Did you dare, when you were brought forward in
the Flaminian Circus, with your colleague, to say that you
had always been merciful ? by which expression you declared
that the senate and all virtuous men were cruel at the time
that I warded off ruin from the republic. You were a mer-
ciful man when you handed me over, — ^me, your own relation,
— ^me, whom at your comitia you had appointed as chief
guardian of the prerogative tribe, whose opinions on the
calends of January you had asked then, — ^boimd and helpless
to the enemies of the republic ! You repelled my son-in-law,
your own kinsman; you repelled your own near relation, my
daughter, with most haughty and inhuman language, from
your knees; and you, also, 0 man of singular mercy and
clemency, when I, together with the republic, had fallen, not
by a blow aimed by a tribune, but by a wound inflicted by a
consul, behaved with such wickedness and such intemperance,
that you did not allow one single hour to elapse between the
time of my disaster and your plunder; you did not allow
even time for the lamentations and groans of the city to die
away. It was not yet openly known that the republic had
fiJlen, when you thought fit to arrange its interment. At
one and the same moment my house was plundered and set
on fire, my property from my house on the Palatine Hill was
taken to the house of the consul who was my neighbour, the
goods from my Tusculan villa were also taken to the house of
my neighbour there, the other consul ; when, while the same
mob of artisans were giving their votes, the same gladiator
proposing and passing laws, the forum being tmoccupied, not
only by virtuous men, but even by free citizens, and being
entirely empty, the Roman people being utterly ignorant
what was going on, the senate being beaten down and crushed,
there being two wicked and impious consuls, the treasury, the
prisoners, the legions, allies and military commands, wei*e
giv^n away as they pleased.
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I. SPEECH AFTBB HIS RETURN. 481
VIII. But the ruin wrought by these consuls you, 0 con-
Buls, have prevented from spreading further by your virtue,
being assisted as you have been by the admirable loyalty and
diligence of the tribunes of the people and the prsetors. What
shall I say of that most illustrious man, Titus Annius 1^ or,
who can ever speak of such a citizen in an adequate or worthy
manner ? For when he saw that a wicked citizen, or, it would
be more correct to say, a domestic enemy, required (if it were
only possible to employ the laws) to be crushed by judicial
proceedings, or that, if violence hindered and put an end to
the courts of justice, in that case audacity must be put down
by virtue, madness by courage, rashness by wisdom, hand by
band, violence by violence, he first of all prosecuted him for
violence; when he saw that the very man whom he was pro-
secuting had destroyed the courts of justice, he took care that
he should not be able to carry everything by violence. He
taught us that neither private houses, nor temples, nor the
forum, nor the senate-house could be defended from ihe
bands of domestic robbers without the greatest gallantry, and
large resources and numerous forces. He was the first man
after my departure who relieved the virtuous from fear, and
deprived the audacious of hope ; who delivered this august
body from alarm, and the city from slavery. And Publius
Sextius following the same line of conduct with equal virtue,
'Courage, and loyalty, thought that there were no enmities, no
efforts of violence, no attacks, no dangers even to his life,
which it became him to i^un, in defence of my safety, of your
authority, and of the constitution of the state. He, by his ^
diligence, so recommended the cause of the senate, thrown into
disorder as it was by the harangues of wicked men, to the
multitude, that your name soon became the most popular of
all naijaes, your authority the object of the greatest affection
to all men. He defended me by every means that a tribime
of the people could employ ; and supported me by every sort
of kind attention, just as if he had been my own brother ; by
his clients, and freedmen, and household, and resources, and
letters, I was so much supported, that he seemed to be not
only my assistant imder, but my partner in calamity. Now
1 This was Titus Annius Milo, by which last name he is best known
to ns. He was tribune, and finding it impossible to bring Clodios to
Justice in the legal way, resolved to deal with him according to his
own fashion, and bought a troop of gladiators, at the head of whom he
bad dally skirmishes with him in the streets.
VOL. II. II
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.482 CIOEBO'S 0BATI0N8.
you Lave seen the kindness and zeal of the others ; how de-
voted to me was Caius Cestilius, how attached to you^ how
imifomilj faithful to our cause. What did Marcus Cispius do f
I know how much I owe to him and to his &ther and brother;
and they, though they had some personal grudge against me
on their own priyate accoimt, stiU disregarded their private
dislike out of recollection of my services to the state. Also,
Titus Fadius, who was my qucestor, and Marcus Curtius, to
whose father I was qusestor, cherished the memory of our con-
nexion with all zeal, and affection, and courage. Caius Mes-
sius made many speeches in my behalf, for the sake both of
our friendship and of the republic. And he at the b^inniDg
proposed a special law respecting my safety. If Quintos
Fabricius could only have eflfected, in spite of violence and
arms, what he endeavoured to do in my behalf we should have
recovered our position in the month of January. Bjb own
inclination prompted him to labour for my safety, violence
checked him, your authority recalled him.
IX. Of what disposition towards me the preetors were, you
were able to form an opinion when Lucius Csecihus, in his
private character, [laboured to support me from his own
resources, and in his public capacity proposed a law respecting
my safety, in concai^ with all his colleagues, and refused the
plimderers of my property permission to support their actions
by legal proceedings. But Marcus Calidius, the moment he
was elected, showed by his vote how dear my safety was to him.
Caius Septimius, Quintus Valerius, Publius Crassus, Sextus
Quintilius, and Caius Comutus, aU devoted all their energies
to the promotion of my interests and those of the republia
And while I gladly make mention of these things, I am
not unwilling to pass over the wicked actions done by'some
people with a view to injure me. It is not suited to my for-
tunes at present to remember injuries, which, even if I were
able to revenge them, I still would rather forget All my h&
is to be devoted to a different object : to that of showing my
gratitude to those who have deserved weU of me ; to preserv-
ing those friendships which have been tried in the fire ; to
waging war against my open enemies ; to pardoning my timid
friends ; to avoiding the showing those who deserted me any
indignation at having been forced to leave the city ; to con-
sole those who promoted my return by a proper display of
niy dignity. And if I had no other duty before me for all the
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L SFBBOH AFTBt HIS REtTUBN. 483
rest of my life, except to appear sufficiently grateful to tbe
very originators and prime movers and authors of my safety,
still I should think the period that remains to me of lifis too
brief, I will not say for requiting, but even for enumerating
the kindnesses which have been shown to me. For, when
shall I, or when will all my relations, be able to show proper
gratitude to this man and to his children ? What memory,
what force of genius, what amount of deference and respect
will be a fit return for such numerous and immense services ?
He was the first man who held out to me the promise and
fidth of a consul when I was overwhelmed and miserable ; he
it was ^who recalled me from death to life, from despair to
hope, from destruction to safety. His affection for me, his
zeal for the republic, was so great, that he kept thinking how
he might not only relieve my calamity, but how he might
even make it honourable. For what could be more honour-
able, what could happen to me more creditable, than that
which you decreed on his motion, that all people from all
Italy, who desired the safety of the republic, should come
forward for the sole purpose of supporting and defending me,
a ruined and almost broken-hearted man 1 So that the senate
sunmioned the citizens and the whole of Italy to come from
all their lands and from every town to the defence of one
man, with the very same force of expression which had never
been used but three times before since the foundation of
Home, and at those times it was the consul who used it in
behalf of the entire republic, addressing himself to those only
who could hear his voice.
X. What could I leave to my posterity more glorious than
the fact, that the senate had declared its judgment that any
citizen who did not defend me, did not desire the safety of the
republic? Therefore your authority, and the preeminent
dignity of the consul, had this great effect, that every one
thought that he was committing a shameful crime if he did
not come to that summons. And this same consul, when
that incredible multitude, when Italy itself I might almost
say, had come to Rome, summoned you repeatedly to the Capi-
tol ; and at that time you had an opportunity of seeing what
great power excellence of natural disposition and true noble-
ness have. For Quintus MeteUus, himself an enemy of mine,
and a brother of an enemy of mine, as soon as he was assured
of your inclinations, laid aside his own private dislike to me,
Ii2
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484 acEBO's orations.
and allowed Publius Servilius, a most illustrious man, and
also a most virtuous one, and a most intimate friend of my
own, to recal him, by what I may call the divine influence of his
authority and eloquence, to the exploits and virtues of his race
and of their common family, so as to take to his coimsels his
brother, in the shades below, the companion of my fortunes,
and all the Metelli, those most admirable citizens, summoning
them as it were from Acheron ; and among them the great
conqueror of Nimiidia, whose departure from his country for-
merly seemed grievous to all the citizens, but scarcely even
vexatious to hunself He, therefore, turns out now, not only
a defender of my safety, having been previously to this one
kindness of his always my enemy, but even the seconder of
my restoration to my dignity. And on that day when you
met in the senate to the number of four hundred and seven-
teen, and when all these magistrates were present, one alone
dissented ; he who thought that the conspirators could by his
law be awakened from tibe shades below. And on that day
when in most weighty and copious language you delivered
your decision, that the republic had been preserved by my
counsels, he as consul again took care that the same things
should be said by the cLaef men of the state in the assembly
the next day ; and he then spoke on my behalf with the
greatest eloquence, and brought the assembly into such a
state, all Italy standing by and listening, that no one would
listen to the hateful and detested voice of any of my hired or
profligate enemies.
XI. To these acts of his, being not only aids to my safety,
but even ornaments of my dignity, you yourselves added the
rest that was wanting. You decreed that no one should by
eny means whatever hinder that matter from proceeding ;
ihat if any one did try to interpose any obstacle, you woidd
be very angry and indignant ; that he would be acting in a
manner contrary to the interests of the republic, and the
fiafety of good men, and the imanimous wish of the citizens ;
and that such a man was instantly to be reported to you.
And you passed a vote that, if they persisted in interposing
obstacles, I was to return in spite of them. Why need I teU
how thanks were given to all those who had come up from
the municipal towns; or that they were entreated to be
present with equal eagerness on that day when the whole
ttflfeir was consummated 1 Lastly, why need I tell what you
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I. SPEECH AFTER HIS BETUBN. 485
did on that day which Publius Lentulus has made as a birth-
day to me^ and to my brother^ and to our children, to be re-
collected not only by ns, who are now alive, but by all onr
race for ever? On which day, in the comitia centmiata>
which our ancestors rightly called and considered the real
comitia, he summoned us back to our coimtry, so that the
same centuries which had made me consul should declare
their approval of my consulship. On that day what citizen
was there who thought it right, whatever his age or state of*
health might be, to deny himself the opportunity of giving his
vote for my safety 1 When did you ever see such a multitude
assembled in the Campus, siich a splendid show of all Italy
and of all orders of men ? when did you ever see movers, and
tellers, and keepers of the votes all of such high ranki There-
fore, through the active, and admirable, and godlike kindness
of Publius Lentulus, we were' not allowed to return to our
country, as some most eminent citizens have been, but we
were brought back in triumph, borne by white horses in a
gilded car.
Can I ever appear grateful enough to CnsBus Pompeiue^
who said, not only among you who all were of the same
opinion, but also before the whole Eoman people, that the
safety of the republic had been preserved by me, and was in-
separably connected with mine ? who recommended my cause
to the wise, and taught the ignorant, and at the same time
checked the wicked by his authority, and encouraged the
good ; who not only exhorted the Roman people to espouse
my cause, but even entreated them to do so, as if he were
speaking for a brother or a parent ; who, at a time when he
was forced to keep within his house from fear of contests and
bloodshed, begged even of the preceding tribunes to propose
and carry a law respecting my safety ; who in a colony lately
erected, where he himself was discharging the duties of a
magistrate in it, where there was no bribed interrupter, de-
clared that the privilegium^ passed against me was violent and
cruel, confirming that declt^tion by the authority of most
* "A PrivUegium signified an enactment that had for its object a
single person, which is indicated by the form of the word pritKB res,
being the same as nngulai res. It might be beneficial to the party to
whom it referred, or not ; but it is generally used by Cicero in the
mifavourable sense.**— Smith, Diet. Ant p. 500, y. Lex. "In the time of
the republic it was not allowed to pass or to propose such a law." — Riddle,
V. FrtvUegvum, But I do not know his authority for such a statement.
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486 OIOBROS ORATIONS.
bobourable ii^en, and by public letters^ and, being the diief
man there, gave his opinion that it was becoming to implore
the protection of all Italy for my safety ; who, when he him-
self had always been a most firm friend to me, laboured also
to make all his own friends friends also to me.
XII. And by what services can I requite the kindness of
Titus Annius to me 1 all whose actions, the whole of whose
oonduct and thoughts, the whole of whose tribuneship, in
short, was nothing else except a conEostent, continual, gallant>
unwearied adyocaoy of my rafety.
Why need I speak of Publius Sextius ? who showed his
good-will and £adthEul attachment to me, not only by his
grief of mind, but even by the wounds which he received on
his person.
But to you, 0 conscript fstthers, and to each individual of
you, I have both declared, and I will continue to declare my
gratitude. I declared it at the beginning to your whole body,
as well as I could ; to declare it with sufficient eloquence is
what I am totally imable to do. And although I have re-
ceived especial &vours from many persons, about which it is
impossible for me to keep silence, still it is impossible at
the present time, and with the appl«h«[udons which I feel^ to
endeavour to enumerate the kindnesses which I have received
from individuals. For it is difficult to avoid passing over
some, and yet it would be impious to forget any one. I, O
conscript others, ought to reverence every one of you as I do
the immortal gods. But as, even in the case of the immortal
gods themselves, we are wont not always to pay worship and
to offer prayers to the same deities, but sometimes we pray to
one and sometimes to another; so in the case of the nien who
have behaved to me with such godlike service, my whole life
shall be devoted to celebrating their kindness towards me^
and showing my reverent sense of it But on this day I have
thought that it became me to return thanks especially to the
different magistrates by name, and also to one private indivi-
dual, who for the sake of my safety had visited all the muni-
dpal towns and colonies, had as a suppliant addressed his
entreaties to the Roman people, and had declared that opinion
which you followed when you restored me to my dignities.
You always distinguished me when I was prosperous; when I
was in distress you defended me to the extent of your power,
by the change of your garments, and your general mouiQing^
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L SFEEOH AFTER HIS BBtUBN. 487
There have been times within our own recollection when
senators did not dare to change their robes even in their own
personal dangers ; but in my danger the whole senate changed
its garments as £Eir as it was allowed to do without interruption
from the edicts of those men who wished to deprive me in my
peril not only of all proteotion*from them, but of even the
benefit of your prayers in my behalf.
And when I was in such circumstances as these, when I
saw that I as a private individual had to contend with the
same army which as consul I had defeated, using not arms
but your authority, I deliberated much with myself.
XIII. The consul had said that he would make the Boman
knights pay for the scenes on the Capitoline HiU. Some were
sunmioned by name, ' others were prosecuted, some were
banished. AJl access to the temples was prevented, not
merely by their being garrisoned or occupied with a strong
force, but by their being demolished. The other consul, not
content with only abandoning me and the republic, unless he
could also betray us to the enemies of the republic, had bound
those enemies to him by promising them the rewards which
they coveted. There was another man at the gates with a
command^ given to him for many years, and with a large
army. I do not say that he was an enemy of mine, but I do
know that he said nothing when he was stated to be my
enemy. As there were thought to be two parties in the re-
public, the one was supposed, out of its enmity to me, to
demand that I should be given up to it ; the other, to defend
me, but timidly out of fear of bloodshed. But those who
seemed to require me to be given up to them increased the
fear of a contest by their conduct, as they never diminished
the suspicions and anxieties of men by denying what they
were suspected of. Wherefore, when I saw the senate deprived
of leaders, and myself attacked by some of the magistrates,
betrayed by some, and abandoned by others; when I saw that
slaves were being enlisted by name \mder some pretence of
fcnrming guilds ;' that all the troops of Catiline were recalled
to their original hopes of massacre and conflagration under
1 He meang Jnliiia Cmar, who had the command in Gaol as proconsul
for five years.
« " Clodius not only restored the old collegia or guilds, but formed
some new ones of the very dregs of the city, and of the slaves ; and this
ii aUtided to in several of the subsequent orations."— Manut.
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488 OIOERO'S ORATION&
almost the same leaders as before ; that the Boman knights
were iinder the same fear of proscription as before ; that the
municipal towns were in dread of being pillaged, and every
one in fear of his life ; I might — I might, I say, 0 conscript
others, still have been able to defend myself by force of arms,
and many wise and brave men advised me to do so ; nor was
I wanting in the same courage which I had shown before, and
which was not unknown to you. But I saw that if I defeated
my present enemy, I had still too many others behind who
must also be defeated ; that if I "were beaten myself many
virtuous men would fell for my sake, and with me, and even
after me ; and that the avengers of the blood of the tribunes
were present, but that all satisfection for my death must be
exacted by the slow progress of the law, and reserved for
posterity.
XIY. I did not choose, after I had as consul maintained
the general safety of the state without having recourse to
arms, to take arms as a private individual in my own cause >
I preferred that virtuous men should grieve for my fortune
rather than despair of their own; and if I were slain by my-
self, that I thought would be a shameful end for me ; but if I
were slain with many others, that I thought would be fetal to
the republic. If I had supposed that eternal miseiy waa
before me, I would rather have endured death than everlast-
ing agony. But I felt sure that I should not be absent from
this city any longer than the constitution itself was, and,
while that was banished, I thought it no longer desirable for
myself that I should remain in it ; and in accordance with my
expectation, as soon as ever the constitution was restored, it
brought me back in triumph as its companion. The laws
were all banished as well as I, the courts of justice were
banished as well as I ; the prerogatives of the magistrates, the
authority of the senate, the liberty of the citizens, even the
fruitfulness of the land, all piety and all religion^ whether it
was with respect to men or gods, were all banished from the
state when I was banished. And if they had been lost to
you for ever, I should mourn over your fortimes rather than
regret the loss of my home amongst you ; but if they were
ever restored, I was quite sure tlmt I should be enabled to
return with them.
And of these feelings of mine, he who was the protector of
my life is also my m^ indisputable witness, namely Cnsdua
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I. SPEECH AI7BB HIS RETURN. 489
Plancius, who, disregarding all the distinctions and emolu*
ments which might have been derived from a province, de-
voted his whole qnsestorship to supporting and preserving me.
If he had been my quaestor when I was commander-in-chief,
he would have stood in the relation of a son tome ; now he
surely shall be looked upon by me as a parent, since he has
been my qusestor, not while in authority, but in grief.
Wherefore, 0 conscript &thers, since I have been restored
to the republic at the same time with the constitution of the
republic, in whatever I do for the defence of it, I wiU not
only not in the slightest degree abridge my former liberty,
but I will even increase it.
XY. In truth, if I defended the republic at a time when it
was imder some obligations to me, what ought I to do now
when I owe everything to it ) For what is there that can
crush or even weaken my spirit, when you see that calamity
itself is in my case not a witness of any error, but of most
extraordinary services rendered to the republic 1 For these
disasters were brought on me by my defence of the state ;
they were undergone by me of my own free will, in order
that the republic which had been defended by me should not
be brought into the very extremity of peril. It was not in
my case, as in that of Publius Popillius, a most noble man,
my young sons, or a multitude of my relations that entreated
the Roman people in my behalf; it was not in my case, as in
the case of Quintus Metellus, a most admirable and most illu£h
trious man, a youthful son of proved virtue who strove for me ;
it was not Lucius and Caius Metellus, men of consular rank,
nor their sons ; nor Quintus MeteUus Nepos, who was at that
very moment a candidate for the consulship, nor the LucuUi,
or Servilii, or Scipios, sons of the Metelh, who with tears
and in mourning garments addressed their supplications to the
Eoman people; but one single brother, who behaved to me
with the dutiM affection of a son, who fortified me like a
parent with his coimsels, and loved me like a brother (as
indeed he was), by his mourning robe and his tears and daily
prayers kept alive the regret of me which existed, and the
recollection of my name and services ; and while he had made
up his mind, that unless by your votes he could recover me
here, he would encoimter the same fortune himself and choose
the same abode both in life and death, still he never was
alarmed either at the greatness of the business, or at his own
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490 CIOBBO'S ORATIOBS.
♦
solitary and unasBisted condition^ nor at the violenoe and
warlike measores of my adversarieB.
There was another upholder and assiduous defender of my
fortunes. Gains Piso, my son-in-law^ a man of the greata^
virtue and piety, who disregarded the threats of my enemies,
the hostility of my connexion, and his own near relation, the
oonsul j who, as qusBstor, passed over Pontus and Bithynia
fbr the sake of ensuring my safety. The senate never decreed
anything respecting Puhlius PopiUius ; no mention was ever
made in this assembly of Quintus Metellus. They were
restored by motions made by the tribimes, after their encodes
had been slain, and, above all, they were not restored by the
interposition of any authority on the part of the senate,
though one of them had done what he did in obedience to
the senate, the other had fled from violence and bloodshed
For Gains Marius, the only man of consular dignity in the
memory of man who was ever driven from the city in times
of civil discord before me, was not only not restored by the
senate, but by his return almost destroyed the senate. Hiere
was no imanimity of magistrates in their cases, — no sum-
moning of the Roman people to come to the defence of the
republic, — ^no commotion throughout Italy, — ^no decrees on
municipalities and colonies in their &vour.
Wherefore, since yoiur authority has summoned me, — since
the Roman people has recalled me, — since the republic has
begged me to return, — since almost all Italy has brought me
back in triumph on its shoulders, I will take care, 0 conscript
&thers, now that those things have been restored to me, the
restoration of which did not depend on myself, not to appear
wanting in those qualities with which I can provide myself;
I will take care, now that I have recovered those things which
I had lost) never to lose my virtue and loyal attadmient to
you.
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n. SFEBOH ATTER HIB BBTURN. 491^
THE SPEECH OP M. T. CICERO AFTER HIS
RETURN.
ADDBES8ED TO THB PBOPLB.
THB ABauifiirT.
The day after Oicero had addressed the preceding speech to the aa-
sembly, he returned thanks to the people also from tiie rostra for
the zeal which they had displayed in his behalf, in the following
i^ech ; in which he dwells on TOiy nearly the same topics as those
which had been the ground-work of his oration to the senate. '
I. That which I requested in mj prayers of the all-good and
all-powerful Jupiter, and the rest of the immortal goda,
0 Komaos, at the time when I devoted myself and my for-
tunes in defence of your safety, and tranquility, and concord,
-^namely^ that if I had at any time preferr^ my own iur
terests to your safety, I nodght find that punishment^ which I
was then encounteting of my own accord, everlasting ; but
that if I bad done those things which I had done out of an
honest desire to preserve the state, and if I bad undertaken
that miserable journey on wbicb I was then setting out for
the sake of ensuring your safety, in order that the hatred
wbicb wicked and audacious men bad long since conceived
and entertained against the republic and against all good
men, might break upon me done, rather than on every
virtuous man, and on the entire republic; — ^i^ I say, these
were my feelings towards you and towards your children, that
in that case, a recollection of me, a pity and regret for me,
^ould, at some time or other, come upon you, and the con-
script fathers, and all Italy, I now .rejoice above all things
that that request is beard,-^tbat I am bound to perform iJl
that I then vowed, by the judgment of the immortal gods, —
by the testimony of the senate, — by the unanimous consent
of all Italy^ — ^by the confession of my enemies, — ^by your
godlike and never-to-be-forgotten kindness, 0 citizens of
Rome. Although there is noldiing more to be wished for by
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493 OIOEBO'S OSATIOKB.
man than prosperous, equal, oontinnal good-fortune in life,
flowing on in a prosperous course, without any misadyenture;
still, if all my life had been tranquil and peaceful, I should
haye been depriyed of the incredible and almost heayenly
delight and happiness which I now enjoy through your kind-
ness. What sweeter thing has been giyen to the race of man,
or to each individual^ by nature^ than lus own children ? To
me especially, mine, on account of my affectionate nature,
and on account of their own excellent qualities, are dearer to
me than my life. And yet I did not feel that pleasure when
they were bom, that I feel now when they are restored to me.
Nothing was oyer more acceptable to any one^ than my
brother is to me. I was not so aware of this when I en-
joyed his society, as I became when I was depriyed of it, and
after you again restored me to him and him to me. His own
private estate is a pleasure to every one. The relics of my
fortune, which I have recovered, give me now greater delight
than they used to give when they .were unimpaired. Friend-
ship, &miliar intercourse, acquaintance with my neighbours,
the dependence of one's clients on one, even games and days
of festival, are things the delights of which I have learnt to
appreciate better by being deprived of them than I did while
I was enjoying them. And honour, dignity, my rank and
order, and, above all, your kindness, although they at all
times appeared to me most splendid possessions^ yet, now thai
they are recovered, after having been lost, they appear more
bright than if they had never been hidden from my si^t
And as for my country, 0 ye immortal gods, it is scarcely
possible to express how dear, how delightful it is to me.
How great is the beauty of Italy ! how renowned are its
cities! how varied are the enchantments of its scenery 1
What lands, what crops are here ! How noble is the splen-
; dour of this city, and the civilization of its citizens, and the
J dignity of the republic, and your majesty, 0 people of Bome I
. * Even of old, no one took greater delight in all those things
' than I did. But as good health is more welcome to those
who are just recovered from a severe illness than to those who
have never been sick, so all those things, now that they have
been once missed, delight me more than they did when en-
joyed without interruption.
II. Why, then, am I making all those statements) To
what purpose are they! I wish to make you understand
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n. SPEECH AFTER HIS BBTUBN. 493
that no man ever existed of such eloquence, or of such a god-
like and incredible genius in oratory^ as to be able (I .will not
say to exaggerate or embellish by his language, but even) to
count up and describe the importance and number of the kind-
nesses which I, and my brother, and my children, have received
from you. I (as was necessarily the case) was bom of my parents
but a little child ; it is of you that I am bom a man of considar
dignity. They gave me a brother, without knowing how he
would turn out ; you have restored him to me after he has
been tried and proved to be a man of incredible piety. I
received the republic from them, when it was almost lost;
I have recovered it by your means, after every one had ac-
knowledged that it had been saved by the labours of one man.
The immortal gods gave me children ; you restored them
to me. Besides these things, I have received many things
which I wished for from the immortal gods ; but if it had
not been for your good-will, I should have lost all those
divine gift». Last of all, those honours which I obtained
sepai-ately and step by step, I now receive again from you
all together. So that all that we owed of old to our parents^
all that we owed to the immortal gods, and all that we owed
to you, — all that put together we now owe at this time to
the entire Roman people.
For as, in the case of your very kindness itself its magni-
tude is so great that I cannot do adequate justice to it in my
speech ; so also in your zeal such great good-will and inclina-
tion towards me was displayed, that you seem not only to
have taken my misfortune off from me, but even to have
increased my dignity.
III. For it was not my youthful sons and many other
relations and kinsmen who offered up their prayers for my
return, as they did for that of Publius Popillius, a most noble
man. It was not, as it was in the case of Quintus Metellus,
that most illustrious man, a son of an age fully proved by
this time; or Lucius Diadematus, a man of consular rank and
of the greatest authority; or Caius Metellus, a man of cen-
sorian rank ; or their children ; or Quintus Metellus ISTepos,
who at that time was standing for the consulship ; or the sons
of his sistenf, the Luculli, the Servilii, and the Scipios; — for at
that time there were many Metelli, or sons of the Metelli,
who addressed supplications to you and to your fathers for the
return of Quintus Metellus. And if my own preemineist
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4M oiobro'b orations.
dignity and most glorious achievements w^<e not of suffi-
oient influence^ still the piety of my son^ the prayers of my
relations, the mourning garb of all the young men, the
tears of all the old, had power to move the Koman people
toiaty.
For the case of Caius Marius, who^ after those two most
illustrious men of consular rank^ is in the i:ecollection of you
and of your ancestors the third man of the same rank who,
though a man of the most excessive renown, met with the
same most xmworthy fortune, was very dissimilar to mine.
For he did not return because of the prayers that were offered
for his return ; but he recalled himself amid the discords of
the citizens with an army and by force of arms. But it was
the godlike and unheard-of authority and virtue of Caius
Piso, my son-in-law, and of my most iinhappy and admirable
brother, and their daily tears and mournful appearance, which
obtained my safety from you, though I was destitute of all
other relations, fortified by no extensive connexions, and by
no fear of war or of disturbance. I had but one brother to
move your eyes by his mournful appearance, to renew your
r^llection of an4 your regret for me by his tears, and he had
determined, 0 Romans, if you did not restore me to him to
share my fortunes in exile. So great was his love towards me,
that he thought it would be impious for him to be separated
from me, not only in our abode in this life, but also in our
tombs. In my behalf while I was still present, the senate and
twenty thousand men besides changed their apparel ; for my
sake, after I had departed, you saw only the mourning garb
and misery of one man. He was the one individual who in
Ihe forum conducted himself towards me with the dutiful
affection of a son ; who, by his active kindness, might have
been taken for my parent ; who in love was, as he always has
been, a real brotiier. For the mourning and grief of my
unhappy wife, and the unceasing sorrow of my admirable
daughter, and the regret and childish tears of my little son,
were at times hidden from view by their necessary journeys,
and to a great extent were confined in the obscurity of their
dwelling.
IV. Wherefore your kindness towards us is so much the
greater, in that you restored us not to a multitude of relations,
but to ourselves.
But, as I had no relations, since I could not make ihem. for
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n. SPEECH AFTER HIS RBTXIBN. 4dS
myself to stand forward and avert my misfortune by their
entreaties^ on the other hand, (and that was no more than my
virtue was entitled to procure for me,) I had so many men to
urge and promote my restoration, that in the number of them
and in the credit derivable from their numbers I &r exceeded
all those who had previously had a similar &te. Never was
there any mention made in the senate of Publius Popilllu£f, a
most illustrious and gallant citizen ; nor of Quintus Meteljius,
a most noble, wise, and consist^it man ; nor even of Caius
Mariusi, the guardian of your state and of your empire.
Those, my predecessors in this fortune, were recalled by
motions proceeding from the tribunes, and by no authority of
the senate. But Marius was not only not restored by the
senate, but through the ruin of the senate ; nor was it the
recollection of his mighty deeds that availed to further the
return of Gains Marius, but his own arms and his warlike pre-
parations. But in my case the senate always requested that
its authority might prevail ; and it brought about my eflfectual
recal the very first moment that it was practicable, by the
numbers in which it assembled, and by its legitimate autho-
rity. There were no commotions of municipal cities or colo-
nies on their return. But as for me, all Italy three times
recalled me by its decrees back to my country. They were
restored after their enemies had been slain, and after a gveat
slaughter of the citizens had taken place ; I was brought back
when those men by whom I had been driven out had obtained
provinces, having as one of my enemies a most excellent and
humane man, who, as one of the consulS; himself seconded the
motion for my recal; and after my chief enemy, who had lent
his voice to the conmion enemies of the countary in order to
injure me, was alive only as &r as breathing went, but in
reality was thrust down below even the dead.
y. Lucius Opimius, that most gallant consul, never ad-
dressed either the senate or the people concerning Publius
Popillius. Not only did Caius Marius, who was his enemy,
never say a word to them about Quintus Metellusi, but even
the man who succeeded Marius, Marcus Antonius, a most
eloquent man, and his colleague Aulus Albinus, both ab-
stained from all mention of him. But the consuls of last
year were continually urged to bring forward a motion in my
ease ; but* they, imwilling to appear to be doing so out of
interested motives, (because the one was my kinsman, and I
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had defended the other on a trial for his life,) and fettered hy
the agreement which they! had made about the provinces^
enduiid for the whole of that year the complaints of the
flenatC; the grief of all good men, and the groans of Italy.
But on the first of January, after the orphaned republic had
implored the good fidth of the consul as her Intimate
guardian, Publius Lentulus, the consul, the parent and god
of our safety, and life, and fortune, and memory, and name, as
soon as he had dischaiged the solemn duties of religion,
thought that there was no human business which ought to
occupy him before mine. And the affidr would have been
brought to its completion that very day, if that tribime' of
the people on whom, when I was consul and he quaestor, I
had heaped the greatest possible kindnesses, though the
whole senatorial body, and Caius Oppius;, his father-in-law, a
most virtuous man, threw themselves in tears at his feet, had
not required a night to consider of it ; and that consideration
was devoted, not to giving back the bribe which he had re-
ceived, as some fimcied, but, as was afterwards discovered, to
getting a larger ojie. After that, no other business was tian-
sacted in the senate, and as my recal was hindered by various
manoeuvres, stiU, as their inclination was plainly shown, the
cause of the senate was brought before you in the course of
the month of January. There was this difiference between me
and my enemies. I, affcer I had seen men openly enrolled and
registered in the centuries at the tribunal of Aurelius ; when
I understood that the ancient troops of Catiline had been re-
called to hopes of massacre ; when I saw that men of that
party, of which I myself was accoimted one of the chiefi^
because some of them envied me, and some feared for them-
selves, were either betrayers or at least deserters of the cause
of my safety ; when two consuls, bought by an agreement re-
specting their provinces, had given themselves up to be leaders
to the enemies of the republic, when they saw that their in-
digence, and their avarice, and their lusts could not be satis-
fied Tuiless they gave me up bound hand and foot to the
enemies of my country ; when by edicts and positive com-
mands they forbade the senate and the Eoman knights to
weep for me, and to change their garments, and addr^ sup-
plications to you ; when the bargains made respecting all the
provinces, when every sort of covenant made with every sort
^ HiB name was Serranus.
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II. SPEECH AFnSR BIS BfiTUBN. 497
of person, and the reconciliation of all quairels, and the
treaties between all sorts of jarring interests, were being rati-
fied in my blood ; when all virtuous men were willing to die
either for me or with me ; — I was unwilling to take arms and
fight for my own safety, (as it was quite in my power to do,)
since I thought that, whether I conquered or was defeated, it
would be a grieyous thing for the republic.
But my enemies, when my case was discussed in the month
of January, having murdered many citizens, thought it worth
while to prevent my return, even at the expense of causing
rivers of blood to flow.
VI. Therefore, when I was absent, the republic was in such
a state, that you thought that I and it were equally necessary to
be restored. But I thought that there was no republic at all in
a city in which the senate had no influence, — in which there
was impunity for every crime, — where there were no courts of
justice, but violence and arms bore sway in the forum, —
where private men were forced to rely on the protection of
the walls of their houses, and not on t)iat of the laws, — ^where
tribunes of the people were woimded while you were looking
on, — ^where men attacked the houses of magistrates with arms,
and firebrands, while the &sces of the consul were broken,
and the temples of the immortal gods attacked by the incen-
diary. Therefore, after the republic was banished, I thought
that there was no room for me in this city ; and if the re-
public were restored, I had no doubt that it would bring me
back in its company. Could I doubt, when I was perfectly
certain that Publius Lentulus would be consul the next year,
who in the most dangerous crisis of the republic had been
curule sedile when I was consul, and had been, as such, the
partner of all my counsels and the sharer of all my dangers^
that he would use the medicine which was within reach of a
consul to restore me to safety who was suffering imder wounds
inflicted by a consul ? Under his guidance, and while his col-
league, a most merciful and excellent man, at first abstained
firom opposing him, and afterwards cordially cooperated with
him, nearly all the rest of the magistrates were advocates
of my safety; and among them were those men of in-
domitable courage, of the most eminent virtue, authority,
vigour, and resources, Titus Annius and Publius Sextus,
who showed the greatest good-will and the most energetic zeal
VOL. u. K K
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old age, with a spirit not only not broken on account of
the greatness of Ins misfortuneSy but even strength^ied and
refreshed by it. And I heard him say that he had been
miserable when he was deprived of his country which he had
deliyered from siege; when he heard that his property was
taken possession of and plundered by his enemies; when he
saw his young son a sharer of the same calamity; when, up
to his neck in the marshes, he only preserved his body and
his life by the aid of the Mintumensians, who thronged to
the place and pitied him ; when, having crossed over to Africa
in a little boat, he had arrived as a beggar and a suppliant
among those people to whom he himself had given kingdoms ;
but that now that he had recovered his dignity he woiild take
care, as all those things which he had lost had been restored
to him, still to preserve that fortitude of mind which he never
had lost But there is this difference between myself and
him^ that he used those means in which he was most powerful,
namely his arms, in order to revenge himself on his enemies.
I, too, will use the instrument to which I am accustomed;
since it is in war and sedition that there is room for his
qualities, but in peace and tranquillity that there is scope
for mine. And although he, in his angry mind, laboured
for nothing but avenging himself on his enemies, I will
only think of my enemies as much as the republic herself
allows me.
IX. Lastly, 0 Romans, since they are altogether four
dasses of men who injured me, — one of them, those who were
most hostile to me out of hatred to the republic, because I
had preserved it against their will ; another, those who most
wickedly betrayed me imder pretence of friendship ; a third,
those who envied my credit and dignity, because they, from
their laziness, could not obtain the same honours ; the fourth
was composed of those men who, while they ought to have
been gusodians of the republic, sold (as far as was in their
power) my safety, the constitution of the state, and the dig-
nity of its empire ; I will revenge myself on each class in
proportion as I have been challenged by each — on wicked
citizens, by conducting the republic succ^sfully; on my per-
fidious friends, by trusting them in nothing, and taking every
sort of precaution against them; on the envious, by obeying
virtue and glory ; on the buyers of provinces, by recaUinjt
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If. SPEECH AFTER HIS RETUBN. 501
them home, and by exacting from them an accoimt of their
conduct in those provinces.
Although I feel greater anxiety as to how I am to show my
gratitude to you who have deserved excellently well of me,
than how I am to chastise the injustice and cruelty of my
enemies. In truth, the means of revenging an injuiy are
easier than those of requiting a kindness ; because there is
less trouble in being superior to the wicked than in being
equal to the good ; and also because it is not so necessary to
requite bad men as good men for what you are indebted to
them. Hatred may either be appeased by entreaties, or may
be laid aside out of consideration for the emergencies of the
republic and the general advantage, or it may be restrained
by the difficulty of avenging oneself, or it may be worn out
by the antiquity of the injury which gave rise to it ; but a
man ought not to require to be entreated to show attention to
virtuous men/ * * * * ♦
Nor is the excuse of difficulty to be admitted ; nor is it just
to limit the recollection of a kindness to a certain time or to
a fixed day. Lastly, he who is somewhat indifferent about
seeking revenge is soon openly praised ; but he is most ex-
ceedingly blamed who is in the least slow in requiting such
benefits as you have showered on me ; and he must inevitably
be called, not only ungratefiil, which itself is serious enough^
but impious also. And the principle of requiting a kindness
is different from that of repaying money ; because he who
keeps the money does not pay it, he who has repaid it has not
got it ; but in the case of gratitude, he who repays it still
keeps it, and he who keeps it pays it.
X. Wherefore, I will cherish the memory of your kindness
with undying affection, not only as long as I live and breathe,
\)ut even after I am dead the memorials of your kindness to
me shall still endure. And in showing my gratitude, this I do
promise you, (and this I will always perform,) that diligence
shall never be wanting to me in deliberating on the affairs of
the republic, nor courage in repelUng dangers from the repub-
lic, nor loyalty and honesty in plainly declaring my opinions,
nor freedom in opposing men's inclinations when it is for the
* The remainder of this sentence is given up by Manntins and Hoi>
toman as hopelessly corrupt and unintelligible.
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^02 OIOBBO*S 0BAT10MS.
interests of the republic to do so, nor industry in enduring
labour, nor the grateful zeal of my heart in promoting eyery-
thing which may be advantageous to you. And this care, O
Bomans, shall be fixed in my mind for ever, in order that I
may appear, not only to you, who hold in my heart the power
and divine character of Uie immortal gods, but also to your
posterity and to all nations, to be entirely worthy of that
state which, by the unanimous sufi&ages of its citizens,
decided that it could not maintain its own dignity, imless it
recovered me.
THE SPEECH OF M. T.CICERO AGAINST PUBLIUS CL0DIU8
AND CAIUS CURIO.
There are but a veiy few fragments of this speech remaining, and nothing
is known of the occasion which gave rise to it. It is printed bj
Orellius, according to the corrections of Beier, from the Ambrosian
manuscript. It was evidently addressed to the senate.
I. I HAD determined, 0 conscript fathers, as long as Publius
Clodius was imder prosecution, to say nothing respecting him
either to you, or in any other place. * * *
And he had proclaimed this in furious harangues
««««««
And as soon as he uttered these threats against me and
against the republic * * *
* * * ^at I would add nothing to another person's
danger * * ♦
But if it were decided that it appeared that a man had not
come where that fellow certainly had come
* ♦ * * * *
when he came off from the trial like a naked man from a
diipwreck * * * [the agitation of his mind, and a cer-
tain doud shed over hun from his wickedness, and the burn-
ing torches of the Furies distracted him
II. And consider now whether you could easily be appointed,
when he was not appointed in whose &vour you had made the
concession that we should promise Syria to him out of the
regular order * ♦ ♦
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AGAINST P. CLODIUS AND 0. CUBIO. 503
So that he seemed to be holding out to his creditois the
hope of a province * * *
They add a yast amount of dd^t * * *
He asserts positively that he will be at Borne at the con-
sular comitia * * *
He came to the treasury so long before, iMt he did not find
eveu one single clerk there,
III. * * J* By which that fellow, who was thoroughly
acquainted with every description of sacrifice, thought that he
should be easily able to propitiate the gods.
* * « * . « *
When he said that he wished to cross over and become one
of the common people ; * * * but he was sadly anxious
to cross the strait; and he did not despise this chattering
Sicily.
* * * So few came that you might suppose that he had
not summoned men to an assembly, but to perfect security.
* * * » * *
IV. First of all that harsh and old-fiishioned man inveighed
against those persons who, in the month of April, were spend-
ing their time at Baise, and using the warm baths. What have
we to do with this morose and severe man ? The manners of
our day cannot endure so austere and rigorous a magistrate,
who, as &r as he can help it, will not allow men older than
himself to stay at their own estates and attend to their health
with impunity, even at a time when nothing is doing at Borne.
« * « » ' « «
What, says he, has a man of Arpinum, a country rustic, to do
with Baise 1 Where he was so blind that it was very plain that
he had seen something which he had no right to see ; for he
never once considered that the very patron of his licentious-
ness was not only at Baise, but was trying those very waters
which had been so much to the taste of a man of Arpinum.
But just observe the terrible ill temper and licence of an
adversary and an enemy. He said that I was building where
I have no property ; that I had been staying there
* ^ » * « *
How can one avoid * * * seeing what an evident enemy
that man is to one, when^he accuses one of what he may either
honourably confess, or convincingly deny I
y. For it is not so strange that he thinks us rustic, who are
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504 0I0BBO*S ORATIONS.
unable to proyide ourselyes with a tunic with sleeves, and a
mitre, and purple bands. But you are a most witty man; you
are really elegant ; you are the only well-bred man, who look
well in woman's clothes^ and with the gait of a singing woman ;
who know how to make your countenance look like that of a
woman ; to soften down your voice, and to make your body
smooth. 0 extraordinary prodigy ! 0 you monster I are you
not ashamed at the si^t of this temple, and of this city, nor
of your life, nor of the light of day ? Do you, who were dad
in woman's attire, dare to assume a manly voice, — ^you, whose
in&mous lust and adultery, united with impiety, was not
delayed even by the time required to suborn witnesses to
procure your acquittal ) Did you^ when yoiu: feet were being
bound with bandages, when an Egyptian turban and veil were
being fitted on yoiu: head, when you were with difficulty trying
to get down the sleeved tunic over your arms, when you were
being girdled carefully with a sa8h,----did you never in all that
time recollect that you were the grandson of Appius Claudius ?
Did yoii not, even- if lust had utterly deprived you of all
common sense, ******
But I suppose, when a looking-glass was brought to you,
you perceived that you were a good way removed from a
pretty woman.
As if I were speaking of yom: personal beauty, you wretch.
VI. But, says he, when acquitted * * * After a very
new &shion indeed ; at least you are the first person that was
ever acquitted and yet had to pay damages.
As if I were not content that twenty-five judges* believed
me, * * * -^ho required rich sureties fi:om you
* * « « 4^ «
The divorce of the Pontifex Maximus * * *
VII. It was your own integrity that acquitted you, believe
me ; your modesty dehvered you. The purity of yom: pre-
vious life preserved you. * * * That only four votes
were wanting to ruin you * * *
For Lucius Cotta indeed * * *
So that afterwards, accordingio the Aurelian law, he ooidd
not be a judge. ******
1 Cicero gives an aoconnt of this speech to Atticus, (Epist acL
Ati L 16,) and it appears that this is an allusion to the trial of Clodios
for profiuiing the mysteries of the Bona Dea, on which occaaion he was
«n]j acquitted by the miyority of thirty-one judges to twenty-five.
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FOR H. M. B0AUBU8. 8W
THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICEKO IN DEFENCE OF
MARCUS iEMILIUS SCAURUS.'
THB ARGUMENT.
Marcas Scauras was the step-son of Sylla, in the time of whose triumph
he had behaved with the greatest moderation. He had been aedile, in
which office he had exhibited the games with the greatest magni-
ficence, so as greatly to embarrass his private fortunes. He then
became praetor, and afterwards, having received Sardinia as his pro-
vince, he lost his character for moderation, being said to have treated
the natives with rapacity and excessive arrogance. After his return to
Rome, he obtained some celebrity by defending some persons nnder
prosecution ; and among others, Cains Cato.
At the end of June, a.xj.o. 699, he returned to Rome to stand for the
consulship ; on which he was accused by Publius Valerius Triarius, (a
young man of a high reputation for industry and eloquence,) of acts of
oppression and extortion among the Sardinians. And the trial came
on before Marcus Cato, who was a great friend of Triarius, only three
days after Cains Cato had be^oi acquitted by the exertions of Scaurus.
Lucius Marius and Marcus and Quintus Pacuvius seconded Triarius
in the prosecution ; these two last having had a commission given
to tiiem to go to Corsica and Sardinia to inquire into the state of the
case there, which commission they had neglected, excusing themselves
on the ground that the consular comitia were at hand, and that they
were afraid that while they were away, Scaurus would buy the consul-
ship, and so get the means of oppressing other provinces.
Scaurus relied on the support of rompeius, with whom he was connected
by marriage ; and he was defended by Cicero and five other advocates,
among whom was Quintus Hortensius. While the prosecution was
going on, Faustus Sylla, the son of the great Sylla, and half-brother
of Scaurus, who was also quaestor at the time, came out among the
people severely wounded, crying out that he had been attempted to be
murdered by Scaurus' competitors, and he went about with three
hundred armed guards, prepared to defend himself, if need were, by
force. Scaurus also made a speech on his own behalf, and produced a
great effect on the judges by the recollection of his own ssdiieship, and
the recollection of his father's high character. He was acquitted; but
he did not succeed in obtaining the consulship.
I. 1. a. * * * * It waa desirable above all things for
Marous Scaums, 0 judges, to retain (as he bas always been
1 This oration is in a very corrupt and fragmentary state. It is here
translated as corrected and filled up by Beier in the edition of Orellius.
Beier's "supplements," as Orellius calls them, are inserted between
bn^kets [ J.
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.506 CIOBBO'S ORATIONS.
most especially anxious and attentive to do) the dignity of his
racO; and &mily, and name, without incurring the hatred of
any one, and without either giving offence to or receiving
annoyance from * * *
[But, smce his adverse destiny has brought about this state
of things, he does not think that he ought to grumble at
meeting with the same fortune as his fitther, who was more
than once compelled by his enemies to plead his cause as a
defendant]
1. b. [We know that the most eminent man of our state
was accused by Marcus Brutus. Orations are extant, from
which it. can be seen that many things were said against
Scatirus himself Falsely. No one doubts that ; but still
they were said and urged against him as acpusations by his
enemy.]
***** jjQ ajgQ ^as tried before the people, when
Cnffius Domitius, a tribune of the people, instituted the
prosecution * * *
2. * * * * He was prosecuted by Quintus Servilius
Caepio, under the Servilian law, at the time when the tribunals
of juc^es were funushed exclusively by the equestrian body ;
and after Publius Kutilius was condemned, no one could
appear so innocent as to have no reason to fear that tribunal
******
3. * * * * again also that guardian of the republic
was accused of treason by the same man, imder the Yarian
law. And not long before he was attacked by Quintus
Yariu£f, a tribune of the people.
[And now, 0 judges, Ms enviers and enemies seek to bring
disgrace on the son of this man who was in his time attacked
by the felse accusations of many men, by an ignominious pro-
secution on the ground of extortion. And I have thought it
due to the memory of his most illustrious father to imdertoke
his cause.]
4. a. * * * * for I not only admired that man as
every one else did, but I also loved him above all things. For
when I was burning with a desire for glory, he first ^icouraged
me to hope that virtuis without any aseostance from fortune
could, by means of labour and perseverance, arrive at the
object of its desires. * * *
4. b. * * * ♦ and since the prosecution has been
loaded with a vast heap of charges, but without any great
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FOB H. M. SOAUBUS, 507
diversity or variety of kind ; [if] I were to reply to these
generally [rather than by arguments on each separate charge,
I should appear to have fallen short of what I owe to the
cause, and to my own duty. Nevertheless, 0 judges, we will
first unfold the whple cause to you, and consider it when we
have laid it open before your eyes. And by this means you
will most eafflly arrive at the imderstandmg of the things
about which it is necessary for us to speak, and of the argu^
ments whidi you are required to follow.]
4. c. * * * * a man of the name of Bostar, a Noren-
sian, fleeing from Sardinia. « « * [Triarius alleges as
an article of accusation, that he was recalled from his flight
by the insidious blandishments of Scaurus, and received at
his table inhospitality, and then murdered by poison by his
host and ♦ * * ] ♦ * * that he was buried before Scaurus's
supper was taken away. * * *
4. d. [And how slight are the grounds for any suspicion of
poi&on having been administered, 0 judges, will appear imme-
diately, if you idll only cOnsideir the many causes which fre-
quently produce sudden death.] * * * '
4. e. [Scaurus was a man so happily situated by fortune,
that he could not only retain his own possessions with the
greatest ease, but that he was more likely to be able to
acquire new] ones, than to be forced to sell what he had.
Come, then, while I defend Scaurus, 0 Triarius, do you defend
the mother [of Bostar, whom I accuse of being implicated in
this crime.] * * *
[I have also refuted that assertion of yours] that you were
afraid that ^ ^ * * [unless, as Bostar had died intestate, he
had managed the matter in such a way as if the inheritance
belonged to himself and as if this did not seem to him a
sufficient reason for putting Bostar to death by poison.]
4. f. [But Scaurus] * * * * could not by any possibility
have entered on the possession of that property. * * *
5, * * * * If^ in ttuth, 0 judges, I were speaking in
defence of Lucius Tubulus, who is reported to have been the
most wicked and most audacious man that ever lived, still I
should not be afraid that if he were accused of having given
poison to any guest or companion of his while he was supping
with him, though he was not his heir, and had no quarrel
with him * * * [any one would think that oredibla]
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508 cioero'b orations.
6. [I oome now to the charge of incontmence, and intem-
perate lusty with which the accuser has endeayoured to brand
Scaurus and his character,] when Aris would not give up
[the very wife, says he, whom he himself loved ***** to
his inflamed lust and unbridled desire.] * * *
7. He was compelled to make his escape secretly out of
Sardinia. * * *
[Forsooth, he left his wife behind him and consulted his
own safely by flight, just as beavers, they say, flying from the
hunters] * * ♦ * ransom themselves with that part of their
body on account of which they are chiefly sought for ! * * *
8. [But even though Scaurus had at all times been the
most dissolute and licentious of all men, still that is incre-
dible, 0 judges, which Triarius added, that the wife of Aris
was reduced to such distress by the licentiousness of the
praetor as to seek a remedy for her embarrassment by hanging
herself. For the very first desire which is implanted in man
by nature, and one which we have in common with the very
beasts, is that which prompts and induces a man to preserve
his life, and which instigates him to shim death and all those
things which seem likely to produce death.]
II. 1. a. * * * * And this, I say, 0 judges, is the statp
of the case. Nor is this a new assertion of mine ; but it has
been elicited by the investigations of others * * * *
1. b. [But still it can be proved by examples. Lucretia
having been ravished by force by the king's son, having
invoked the citizens to revenge her, slew herself And this
indignation of hers was the cause of liberty to the state.
And even the bravest men have not sought death of their
own accord, except in the most extreme necessity, for the
purpose of avoiding some disgrace. As Publius Crassus
Mucianus, when waging war against Aristonicus, in Asia,
being intercepted between Elsea and Smyrna^ by the Thracians,
of whom Aristonicus had a great number in lus dififerent gar-
risons, and fearing to Ml into his power, escaped disgrace by
provoking death intentionally. For he is said to have run
the stick which he had been using to manage his horse, into
the eye of one of the barbarians, who, being infuriated by the
pain, stabbed Crassus with his dagger, and so, while avenging
himself, delivered the Boman general from the disgrace of
captivity. And by this means Crassus showed to Fortune
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FOB H. M, SOAUBUB. ' 509
how little the man whom she was loading with such hitter
insult deserved it ; since with equal prudence and courage he
burst the chains which she was lowing over his liberty, and
restored himself to his own dignity, though she had almost
given him to Aristonicus.] * * * * This, indeed, we know
from hearsay ; but this we ourselves can recollect, and have
almost seen, namely, how Publius Crassus, of the same family
and name, slew himself that he might not &11 into the hands
of the enemy. * * ♦
But Marcus Aquillius, who had behaved like a thoroughly
brave man in war, and who had attained the same honours as
the elder Crassus, could not imitate his action * * ♦ ♦ [but]
he disgraced [the recollection of his you]th and of his early
exploits by the infamy of his old age. What need I say
besides? Could either those most illustrious men the
Julii, or could Marcus Antonius, a man of the very highest
ability, imitate the conduct of the other Crassus in those
times ? Need I cite any more instances ? Who is there found
among all the records of Greece, (which are richer in fine
stories than in great actions,) if you only forget Ajax and
the plays of the tragedians, who of his own accord, as
the poet says, being ^
A conqueror all mmsed to infamy.
Would not Buryiye defeat,
except Themistocles the Athenian, who did put himself to
death? But these Greeks invent heaps of stories; and
among them they make out that Cleombrotus, of Ambracia,
threw himself down from a high wall, not because he had suf-
fered any misfortune, but (as I see it written among the
Greeks) after having read a very eloquently and elegantly
written book, of that greatest of philosophers, Plato, about
death ; the one, I suppose, in which Socrates, on that very day
on which he was to die, argues at great length that this is
death which we fancy to be life, when the soul is held in,
shut up in the body as in a prison ; and that that is life when
the same soul, having been released from the bonds of the
body, flies back to that place from which it originated. Had
that Sardinian woman of yours, then, known anything about,
or had she read Pythagoras or Plato ? Though even these
men praise death with such limitations that t^^ey forbid our
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510 0I0EBO*S ORITIONB.
fljing from life^ and saj that mich conduct is contrary to the
oonditions and laws of nature. And in truth you will not be
able to find any other reason which can justify a yoluntaiy
deaih. And this, too, the prosecutor saMr ; for he let out an
insinuation somewhere, tbiat that woman preferred being
deprived of life to being robbed of her chastity. But imme-
diately he went off from that point, and scdd no more about
diastily, being afraid, I suppose, lesfc he should be giyiog us
some opportunity for joking and laughing. For it is quite
notorious that she was abominably ugly and excessitely old.
And so, however lustful that Sar^nian may have been, what
suspicions of licentiousness or love can there be on the part
of my client 1
And that you may not suppose, 0 Triarius, that I am in-
venting the allegations which 1 am now making, and that
I have not derived my ioformation on the subject from
the instructions of the defendant, I will tell you what were
the opinions in Sardinia about that woman's death, (for
there were two opinions,) so that you may the more easily
[and that these men may see the innocence of Scaurus, and
the audacity of your witnesses, and the scandalous nature of
the actions which were then done. Ans, the husband of that
Sardinian woman **♦♦**] had for a long time loved [the
mother of Bostar * ♦♦]♦♦♦ a licentious and wicked woman,
and had lived in shameless and notorious adultery with her.
He was afraid of his wife, who was an old woman, rich and
iU-tempered ; still, though he did not like to keep her as his
wife, because of her ugliness, he did not like to divorce her,
because of her riches. And so, by previous agreement, he
concerted a-plan with the mother of Bostar, that they should
both of them come to Rome ; and he promised that ^en
there he would find out some contrivance for making her
his wife.
There were, as I have said, two opinions, — one, not incon-
sistent with the circimistances or witii the nature of the case,
that the wife of Aris was very indignant at his adultery when
she heard that he had fled to Bome with that love of his,
pretending to have fled for fear of her, or in order, as there
had been a criminal connexion between them before, to be now
formally joined in wedlock; and that she was so excited with
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FOB K. JB. SOAUBU& 511
feminine indignation, that she preferred dying to bearing it
The other was no less probable, and, as I believe, was even
more generally believed in Sar(^a^ namely, that Aris, that
witness and host of yours, 0 Triarius, when departing for
Rome, had entrusted the commission to his freedman, not
indeed to ofifbr open violence to that old woman, for that
would not have been right to his mistress, but to press her
throat with his two fingers, and then to fasten a little cord
round it, so that she might be supposed to have died by hang-
ing. And this suspicion prevailed all the more, because, when
the Norensians were celebrating their festivals in honour of
the dead, and *♦♦♦*♦ had all, according to the custom of
their tribe, left the city, then she was said by the freedman to
have hanged herself; and it was clearly desirable for a man
who strangled his mistress to seek for the solitary time when
the people left the city; but his mistress, who wished to die,
had no such necessity for doing so. And the suspicion was
confirmed, because, immediately after the old woman was
dead, the fi:'eedman started for Bome, as if he had executed
his commission ; and Aris, as soon as his freedman brought
him news of the death of his wife, instantly, at Bome, married
that mother of Bostar.
See now, 0 judges, to what a foul and polluted and in-
&mous * ♦ * &mily you are called on, 0 judgesf, to surrender
this family of Scamrus. Just consider who tibe witnesses are
by whom you are required to be influenced in your decision
about a great man, about a noble fiunily, about an illustrious
namel Do you think that it becomes you to forget the
crimes of the mothers against their children, and of the
husbands against their wives? You see, you behold infamous
lust mingled with cruelty. You have before you the authors
of two most enormous crimes, by which our cause is endea-
voured to be tainted by men who are either ignorant of the
truth, or else who are prompted only by envy. You have
before you men disgraced by every sort of guilt and atrocity.
Is there, then, the slightest suspicion attaching to us after
all these charges of the prosecutor? Have they not been
wholly cleared up? Have they not been refuted? Have
they not been scattered to the winds ? And how has that
been done ? Because you gave me, 0 Triarius, a charge which
T could efi&tce, which I could argue about, which I could
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512 0I0BBO*8 ORATIONS.
dilate upon; because it was a charge of that sort which did
not entirely depend on the witness^ but which the judge could
by himself form his own opinion on. Nor, 0 judges, ought
we to do anything else in the case of an imknown witness,
except by argument, and conjecture, and by suspicion, inquire,
as well as we can, into the state and nature of the circum-
stances to which he deposes. In truth, not only an African
witness, (or indeed a Sardinian one, if that is wlmt they pre-
fer being called,) but even more civilized and scrupulous men
than they, are liable to be prompted, or deterred, or guided, I
or diverted from their piupose ; and such a man is the master
of his own inclination, and may, if he pleases, lie with im-
punity. But the argument which is suited to the case, (and
nothing else can properly be called argument,) is the voice of
circumstances, the traces of nature, the mark of truth; and
of whatever sort it be, it must remain immutable, for it is not
invented by the orator. But assumed. Wherefore, if 1 were
worsted by that sort of accusation, I should yield and submit;
I should be defeated in every respect, — I should be defeated
in the cause, I should be defeated by truth. Are you going
to bring up against me troops and armies of Sardinians? and
are you going to endeavour to frighten me, not by accusa-
tions, but by the roaring of Africans 1 I shall not, indeed, be
able to argue, but I shall be able [to flee for refuge to] the
good fiiith and clemency of these [judges, to their regard for
fiieir oaths, to the equi]ty of the Roman people, which has
considered the &mily of Scaurus as one of the chief &milies
in the city; and I shall be able to implore the divine protec-
tion of the immortal gods, who have always been fevourers of
his race and name.
" He demanded money, he exacted it, he seized it by vio-
lence, he extorted it.*' If the accuser proves all that by the
accounts, since the way in which the accounts are made up
show the regular series and order in which he transacted his
affidrs, I will attend carefully, and I will consider how I am
to proceed in conducting the defence. If you rely on wit-
nesses, (I will not insist upon their being good and respectable
men, as long as they are men of whom it is known who they
are,) then I wiU consider how I am to struggle with each of
them separately. If there is but one complexion, one voice,,
and one notion among all the witnesses; if, as they say, they
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TOR H. M. SOAUBU& . 513
not only do not attempt to corroborate their statements hy
any arguments, but if they do not even produce any descrip-
tion of documents either public or private, (which, however,
can easily be foi^d,) then, 0 judges, which way am I to turn,
or what am I to do? Am I to argue with every one of themi
* * * Had you nothing to give 1 He will say he had. Who
is to know that ? Who is to judge that there was no reason
* * *i He will make out that there was. HoW can we refute
him, and show that it was in his power not to give if iie did
not choose? He will say that it was extorted by force. What
eloquence is able by force of argument to confiite the impu-
dence of a man whom one does not know? I will not, there-
fore, plead against that conspiracy of Sardinians, and with
perjury ingeniously contrived, and procured, and suborned;
nor will I even examine at all into some of the elaborately
wrought out arguments ; but with all my power I will meet
and struggle against their direct attack. I do not want to
drag forward each individual out of their line of battle, nor
to fight and do battle with each separate champion. I must
rout their whole array at one shock, and I will.
For there is one especial most important charge concerning
oom, and applying to the whole of Sardinia, about which
Triarius questioned all the Sardinians ; and that was corrobo-
rated by the agreement and unanimity of evidence of all the
witnesses. And before I touch upon that charge, I beg of
you, 0 judges, to allow m© to lay down a few principles to
serve, as it were, for the foundations of our whole defence.
And if they are once laid down, and established according to
my intentions and expectations, I shall then fear no part of
the prosecution. For I will speak first of the sort of accusa-
tion; after that I will speak of the Sardinians; then I will
say a little about Scaurus himself; and when I have said
enough on these subjects, then at last I will comiB to this
horrible and formidable charge about the com.
What sort of accusation, then, is this, 0 Triarius ? First
of all, that you did not go to examine into it. What was the
meaning of the fierce and positive confidence that you had
as to trusting this man ? It seems to me that when we
were children we heard that Lucius iElius, a freedman, a well-
educated and witty man, when he was avenging injuries sus-
tained by his patron, instituted a prosecution ag^dnst Quintua
VOL. u. L L
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sit CICBRO'S ORATIONS.
Multo, a very mean man. And when he was asked what
province he required to conduct his investigation in, or how
many days he would want to collect his witnesses in, he
asked till eight o'clock, during which time he might prosecute
his investigation in the cattle-market. Did you think that
you were to act in the same way in the case of Marcus
* iEmilius Scaurus 1 " Yes," says he, " for the whole cause was
fully reported to me at Rome. Well ? Did not the Sicilians
lay before me every particular of the caiise of Sicily while
we were both at Rome 1 And they were men prudent by
nature, cunning by experience, and learned by education.
And still I thought it necessary to go into the province itself
for the purpose of coming to a right tmderstanding and
thorough knowledge of the cause of the province. Was I
not boimd to examine into the complaints and injuries of
the cultivators of the soil, in the very lands and fields them-
selves 1 I travelled, I say, 0 Triarius, in a most bitter winter
over the valleys and hills of the Agrigentines. That noble
and most fertile plain of the Leontini itself I may almost
say, instructed me in the cause. I visited the cottages of the
formers ; men talked with me at the plough ; and therefore
that cause was so thoroughly sifted and laid open by me, that
the judges seemed not so much to hear the facts which I
related, as to see them and lay hold of them. For it seemed
neither reasonable nor honest for me, when I had. undertaken
the cause of a most &ithful and ancient province, to learn
the particulars of it, as I might have done in the case of an
individual client, in my chamber.
When lately the people of Reate, who were devoted to my
interest, wished me to plead the public cause of their state,,
concerning the streams of the Velinus and the subterranean
canals, before the present consuls, I do not think that I should
dther satisfy the claims of the dignity of a most emir^nt
prefecture, or do all that was required by good faith op my
part, if I did not get instruction as to the cause not only
fi'om the people themselves, but from the place also and from
the lake itself. Nor would you have acted in any diflFerent
manner, 0 Triarius, if those Sardinians of yours had wished
you to do so ; I mean those who in reality were above all
tilings tmwilling that you should enter Sardinia, lest you
should find that everything was in a totally different C(mdi-
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FOB M. JS. SGAUBU& 51{l^
tion from that in which it had been represented to you; that,
tihiere were no complaints on the part of the people in Sar-
dinia, nor any hatred of the populace towards Scaurus. [And
consider, 0 Triarius, how vast a diflference there is between
your accusation and mine ; I never delayed one moment,
imtil, just as Jupiter (if we believe the fables of the poets)
covered over Euceladus when he was stiicken down and half
burnt, by putting the whole island on him, or as some say
Typhon, by whose panting they say that iEtna is kept con-
stantly on fire, — ^until, I say, I had in the same manner over-
whelmed Verres by producing all Sicily as a witness against
him.] You adjourned the case against tiie defendant after one
witness had been produced. And what a witness ! 0 ye
immortal gods 1 It was not enough that he was only one ;
it was not enough that he yra& a man utterly unknown ; it
was not enough that he was a man on whom no one could
rely. Did you not ruin also your former trial by producing
Valerius as a witness, who, having had the rights of a .citizen
conferred on him by the fevour of your fether, requited his
kindness not by honourable services, but by open perjury ]
But if you were haply swayed by the omen of your name,
still we, according to the precedent of our ancestors, because
we think that a fortunate omen, interpret it not to the injury
of others, but to their safety. But all that rapidity and haste,
the fact of your having put an end to the investigation -and
to the whole of the previous trial, has made that plain and
notorious — ^which, however, was never a secret — that this trial
was contrived, not for the sake of justice, but because of the
consular comitia.
And while speaking on this point, I will on no occasion
find fault with Appius Claudius, a most gallant consul and a
most accomplished man, and who, as I hope, is connected
with me by a trustworthy and lasting reconciliation. For
this part belonged either to that man whom his own indig-
nation and suspicion compelled to act in that manner, or to
him who requested that part for himself, because either he
did not perceive whom he was attacking, or because he
thought that the path to a reconciliation woidd be easy. I
will only say this, which may be sufficient for my cause, and
which cannot appear otherwise than far removed from harsh-
ness or severity towards him. For what disgrace is there in
LL 2
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516 OICBRO'S ORATIONS.
the &ot of AppiiLS Claudius being an enemy to Marcus
Scaurus 1 What, I say ? Was not liis grand&ther aa enemy
to Publius Africanus 1 What, I say 1 Is not that very man
himself an enemy to me ? Or am not I to him 1 And those
enmities have perhaps at times caused vexation to each of
us, but certainly have never brought disgrace upon either of
us. The one who was quitting office envied his successor,
and wished him to meet with as many disasters as possible,
in order that his own memory might be the more conspicuous.
A state of things not only not foreign to our habits, but one
that has become very usiial, and exceedingly frequent. Nor
indeed would such an every-day occurrence have of itself
had any influence at all upon Appius Claudius, a man en-
dowed with the greatest himianity and wisdom, if he had
not thought that Scaurus was going to be a competitor of
Caius Claudius his brother.
Who, whether he was a patrician, or a plebeian, (for he had
not yet settled that for a certainty,) thought that the contest
would lie chiefly with him : and Appius thought it would be
so much the more severe a contest, because he recollected
that, when standing for the pontificate, for the priesthood of
Mars, and for other offices, he had stood as a patrician.
Wherefore, while he was consul he did not wish his brother
to meet with a repulse, and yet, if he stood as a patrician, he
saw'that he would certainly not be equal to Scaurus, unless
he could get rid of him either by some terror, or by some
disgrace.
Should not I think that a brother may be excused for such
an idea, when the most distinguished honours of his brother
are at stake, especially when I am aware, almost beyond all
other men, how great is the influence of brotherly love ? Oh,
but his brother is now not a candidate. What tiien ? If he,
having been detained by aU Asia, which came to him as his
suppliant, — ^if he, yielding to the entreaties of the men of
business, and of the formers of the revenues, and of all men
both allies and citizens, preferred the advantage and safety of
the province to the acquisition of honour for himself ; is that
a reason for your thinking that a disposition once thoroughly
diseased can be so easily cured )
Although, in all those affiiirs, especially among barbarian
nations, opinion is often of m<nre influence than the foots
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FOR M. M. 8CAUBUS. 517
themselves. The Sardinians were persuaded that they could
do nothing which would be more acceptable to Appius than
if they disparaged the reputation of Scaurus. They are
swayed besides by the hope of many advantages and many
rewards ; they thmk that a consul can do everything, espe-
cially when he makes promises of his own accord. About
which I will not at present say any more ; although what I
have said I have said in no other manner than I should have
said them if I had been his brother; not such an one as he is
who is his brother, and who has said a great deal, but such mi
one as I am accustomed to be towards my own brother.
You ought, therefore, 0 judges, to resist every part of an
accusation of this sort, in which nothing is done according to
precedent, nothing with moderation, nothing with considera-
tion, nothing with int^rity ; but, on the contrary, you see
that everything has been undertaken wickedly, turbulently,
precipitately, rapidly, — everything by means of a conspiracy,
and of absolute power, and of illegal influence, and of hopes
and of threats.
I come now to the' witnesses ; and I will not only show
that there is no confidence to be placed in, no authority to
be attributed to them, but I will prove that there is not even
any appearance of or resemblance to evidence in them. In
truth, in the first place, the minute agreement between them
all destroys their credibility, which was proved by the reading
of the tmdertaking entered into by the Sardinians, and by
the conspiracy which they formed. Secondly, their covetous-
ness, which was excited by the hope and promise of rewards,
does so too. Lastly, their national origin does so, for the
worthlessness of their nation is such that they think that
liberty is only to be distinguished fix)m slavery by the bounds
less licence for telling lies which it gives. Nor do [I sayl that
these judges ought never to be influenced by the complaints
of the Sardinians. I am not so inhuman, nor so hostile to
the Sardinians, especially when my brother has only lately
left their island, having been sent thither by Cnceus Pompeius
to superintend the corn-markets and supplies of the island ;,
in which ofl&ce he, as became his integrity and humanity,
consulted their interests himself and was in turn very popular
and very much beloved among them. Let then this refuge
be open to indignation^ let it be open to just complaints, but
ll3
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518 dOBRO's ORATIONS.
let the path be closed against conspiracy, let it be closed
against treachery : and this not more among the Sardinians
than among the Gauls, among the Africans, and among the
Spaniards. Titus Albucius was condemned; Caius Megu-
boccus was condemned on accotmt of complaints proceeding
from Sardinia, though some of the Sardinians even praised
him. And in that case the very variety of their sentiments
gained them the more credit. For those men were convicted
by fair witnesses, and by documents which no one had tam-
pered with. Now there is but one language and one feeling;
one not extorted by indignation, but feigned ; not excited by
the injuries infldcted by this man, but by the promises and
bribes of others. But the Sardinians have not been always
disbelieved. And perhaps they wiU again be believed some-
time or other, if ittej come like honest men, and without
having been bribed, and of their own accord, and not because
of the instigation of any one else, and under no obligation
to any one, and free. And when all these circumstances are
united, still they may exult and marvel if they are believed.
But when these circumstances are all wanting, will they still
persist in forgetting who they arel will they not take care to
shun the reputation of their race ?
All the monuments of the ancients and all histories have
handed down to us the tradition that the nation of the Phoe-
nicians is the most treacherous of all nations. The Poeni,
who are descended from them, have proved by many rebel-
lions of the Carthaginians, and very many broken and vio-
lated treaties, that fliey have in no respect degenerated fix)m
them. The Sardinians, who are sprung from the Poeni, with
an admixture of African blood, were not led into Sardinia
as colonists and establidied there, but are rather a tribe
who were draughted off, and ptit there to get rid of them.
Wherefore, as there was never anything honest in the
nation when united, how must we suppose that its roguery
has been sharpened by so many mixtures of different races 1
And here Cnaeus Domitius Sincerus, a most accomplished
man, my ancient and intimate friend, will pardon me * * * ♦
all who had the freedom of the city conferred on them by
the same Cnseus Pompeius ; all of whom we now cite as
fevourable witnesses ; and other virtuous men from Sardinia
will pardon me ; for I believe there are some such men there.
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FOR M. iB. SCAUBUB. 519
Kor indeed, when I speak of the vices of the nation, do I
except no one. But I am forced to speak generally of the
entire race ; in which, perhaps, some individuals by their
own civilized habits and natural humanity have got ike bet-
ter of the vices of their &mily and nation. That the greater
part of the nation is destitute of fidth, destitute of any com-
mimity and connexion with our name, the fiwjts themselves
plainly show. For what province is th^e besides Sardinia
which has not one city in it on friendly terms with the
Roman people, not one free city?
Africa itself is the parent of Sardinia, which has waged
many most bitter wars against our ancestors, and not only
in its kingdoms, which were loyal to their native monarchs,
but even in our very province it kept itself from all alliance
with us at the time of the Ptmic wars, as the case of TTtica
proves. The ftirther Spain, ennobled by the defath of the
Scipios, and by the funeral pile of the Sa^untine loyalty, has
the city of Gades joined to us by reciprocal good offices, by
conmion dangers, and by treaty. I ask now whether any
city of Sardinia can be mentioned which is joined to us by
treaty ? Not one. With what fece, then, can a Sardinian
witness dare to come before the Roman people] * * * power-
less in resources, treacherous by descent? * ♦ ♦ ♦ [Have
you, too, come hither to repulse Marcus Scaurus from the
consulship, and are you attempting to deprive him of the
kindness of the Roman people 1 By what authority are you
acting in this manner 1]
[The prosecutor has said that you are afraid lest Scaurus
might purchase the consulship with that money which he
has taken from the allies ; and, as his father did before him,
enter on his province before any decision could be come to
respecting him, and again plunder other provinces before he
gave any accotmt of his former administration ; and Triarius
alleged this as the very reason why he had imdertaken the
conduct of this prosecution in so hasty and so disorderly a
manner. What extraordinary thing is this ? What prodigy
is this ?]♦*** Did the sheepskins of the Sardinians move
that man whom the royal purple could not influence ? * ♦ * *
[For there is no one so completely a stranger in this city,
no one whose ears are so much on their travels, and so whoUy
ignorant of the ordinary conversation in the republic, as not
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520 CICEBO*S OBATION&
to know that Marcus ScaumSy when his step-&,th6r SjUa was
Tictorions, and liberal enough to his comrades in victory, waa
so moderate that he would not allow any presents to be made
to him, nor did he purchase anything at any auction. This
seems a strange thing to others ; but it was impossible for
him to act otherwise. For he recollected that he was the son
of that man, who by the resolution of the senate, of which
he was the chie^ and almost by his own nod, had goyemed, I
may almost say, the entire world. Wherefore, 0 you venal
Sardinians, I command you ***]**** when you hear
this name, which is well known among all the nations upon
earth, to entertain also, with respect to that noble &mily, the
same sentiments which all the rest of the earth entertains.
[At present, Marcus Scaurus, in mourning attire, worn out
with tears and misery, is your suppliant, 0 judges, implores
the aid of your good fe,ith, entreats your pity and clemency,
and fixes lus eyes and hopes oij your power and your protec-
tion. Do not, I entreat you, by the immortal gods, 0 judges,
permit your fellow-citizen and suppliant to be deprived by
unknown witnesses and barbarians, not only of the con-
sulship by which he trusted to receive an accession of
honour, but also of the other distinctions which he had ao-
qidred before, and of aU his dignity and fortune. Scaurus,
0 judges, also begs and entreats you to save him firom this,
if he has never injured any one unjustly, nor offended any
one's ears or inclination, if (to use the mildest expression)
he has never given any one any reason to hate him. Once
only has his filial affection imposed on him the duty of so
doing] * * * *
***** for as, out of many men who had done so, Dolabella
was the only one of his father's enemies who remained, who
had joined Quintus Csepio, his relation, in signing articles of
accusation against Scaurus his father ; he thought it behoved
him for the sake of [his filial affection to continue that enmity
which he had not originated himself, but had bequeathed to
him as an inheritance ; emulating Marcus and Lucius Lucul-
lus, who being men of like industry and like piety with him-
self, when very young men, had adopted and followed out
the quarrels of their fathers to their own great glory.}
[But how great has been the injustice of Triarius accusing
Scaurus of having so magnificent a house 1 Oh for that
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BOB M. M. BOAURUa 531
ancient and severe censor, according to whom even a man
who had attained the highest honours of the state, and who
was one of the chief men in it, was not allowed to have a con-
venient or splendid house] * ♦ ♦ * especially when its neai*-
ness to the street, and the populous character of its situation,
must remove from him all suspicion of laziness or ambition.
• * « « ' * *
[But in what an arrogant way, 0 Triarius, did your
oration go on, when you said that such enormous masses of
Luctdlus's marbles and pillars, which we now see placed in
Scaurus's hall, were carried through the city, past the plaster
ornaments on the tops of the temples of the gods, to a
private house, — ^that the contractor for keeping the drains in
repair had a claim for the damage done by dragging them
up the Palatine Hill in wagons. I suppose those pillars
which are thus held up to odium were carried there solely
for the purpose of gratifying the pride of individuals, which
the Roman people detests; and not for the S0>ke of being
a public ornament to the city, which it approves of. Are
you the only man in Rome ignorant that Scaurus used those
pillars when he was eedile for the ornamenting of the theatre,
in order that, by the magnificence of his exhibition, and by his
great liberality devoted in that manner to the honour of the
immortal gods, he might increase the religious reverence
with which the games were observed by the splendour of his
preparation?] ♦ ♦ *
* * ♦ Moreover, I, who have pillars of Alban marble,
brought them up in panniers | ♦ * *
[Whatt what vast and what prodigal expense did you
yourself, 0 Triarius, incur in procuring pillars !]
* * * For this T do marvel at, and of this I do com^
plain, — ^that any man should be so anxious to do inJTiry to
another by his words, as to bore holes in the ship in which
he himself is*^ sailing. * ♦ ♦
* * * Were you in want of a house 1 You had one.
Had you too much money ? You were in want of money.
But you went mad after pillars. You were frantic to get
hold of what belonged to other people. You valued a pulled
down, windowless, destroyed house, at a greater price than
yourself and all your fortunes.' * ♦ ♦ .
[What then ? Suppose Scaurus had appealed to you as
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522 0I0EBO*8 ORATIONS.
an arbitrator, to decide '^wkether you had not gone to much
greater expense,— ^whether you had not committed much
greater extravagance, in proportion to your income, for
pillars than he had,'' would it have been necessary to go
through the formalities of a trial to decide whether he had
been guilty of prodigality, who, being possessed of a most
ample estate, and of great family wealth and reputation, had
set off his dignity wiSi a fine house, or he who, when he was
over head and ears in debt before, had sought to obtain
dignity by building a house ]] * ♦ ♦
As it would not be possible for you to escape this argu-
ment, will you still argue and demand that Marcus iEmilius,
with all his own dignity, — with the splendid memory of his
fiither, — ^with the renown of his grand&ther, be sacrificed to
a most sordid, fickle and insignificant nation, and to a lot
of (I had ahnost said) barbarian witnesses 1 * * *
* * * Wherever I turn, not only my thoughts, but
even my eyes, every place suppHes me with arguments to
advance in iivour of Marcus Scaurus. That senate-house
bears witness to you of the fearless and dignified way in
which his father held the post of the chief man of the city.
Lucius Metellus himself, his grand&.ther, appears, 0 judges,
to have placed those most holy gods in that temple in your
sight, that they might gain from you the safety of his grand-
son by their entreaties, as they have, before now, often aided
by their divine assistance many other men in distress who
implored their help. That Capitol, adorned with three tem-
ple^— ^the approaches to the temples of the all-good and all-
powerfiil Jupiter, and of Juno the queen, and of Minerva^
adorned by most magnificent presents of this man's &ther
and of himself, defend Marcus Scaurus [before you now hj
the recollection of this munificence and Uberality to the
public, from every suspicion of avarice ot covetousness.
That temple of Vesta, which is close at hand, warns you to
keep it in your minds.] That great Lucius Metellus, the
Pontifex Maximus, who, when that temple was on fire,
threw himself into the middle of the flames, and saved fix>m
the fire that image of Minerva, which, as if it were a pledge
of our safety and of the empire, is guarded by the protection
of Vesta; — ^would that that great man could be among us,
though but for a short time ; he, forsooth, would save from
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FOR H. M. SOAUBUS. 523
the flames this man, his descendant, as he before saved from
that other conflagration that hea[yenly pledge of our safety.
I am moved by the thought that the gods should be so little
propitious to a priest, that, even though they were saved by
him, they do not preserve his race which was recommended
by him to their protecltion. But as for you, 0 Marcus
Scaurus, I see you, I do not merely think of you ; nor,
indeed, is it without great distress and grief of mind that I
do call you i^o mind when I behold the moumfiil appearance
of your son.
And I wish that, as during the whole of this cause you
have been constantly present before my eyes, you woulc^ in
like manner, now present yourself to the minds of these
our judges, and plamt yourself deeply in all their thoughts.
If your appearance, I csdl [the gods to witness, could come to
life again, (for we have never seen any one equal to you in
wisdom, and dignity, and firmness, and all other virtues,) it
woidd have such weight with every one, that whoever beheld
it,] even if by chance he did not recognise it, would still
pronoimce it to be one of the chief men in the state.
How, then, can I now address you? As a man ] But you
are no longer among us. As a deceased person ? But you
live and flourish ; but you are present to the minds of all
this court, — ^you are visible to their eyes ; your godlike soul
had nothing mortal about it, nor was anything belonging to
you which could die, except yoiu* body. Whatever way,
therefore, [it is proper for you to be addressed, be present to
us, I entreat you, and terrify, by your mere coimtenance, —
by the bare sight of yourself, ihe emptiness and impudence
of those most worthless and mendacious witnesses. Be
present to us, and bring to your fellow-citizens the light of
your counsel, to the authority of which they never repented
deferring, and so prevent them from dishonouring your race
with ignominy and disaster, and from crushing by their sen-
tence your own son, who is no degenerate heir oC bis fe.thor'8
name. 1
END OF VOL. II.
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